Feudal Title Index & Research ~ P-T

Lot #3 of Manorial Services Auction - Nov 2022 - Stephen Johnson

(In association with Strutt & Parker)

Nestled on the borders of Suffolk and Norfolk is the  village of Palgrave. It lies one mile to the south of the  small town of Diss, and is divided from the latter by  the River Waveney which eventually meanders its way  to the North Sea at Lowestoft. At the centre of the  village is Wide Green which found favour with the  topographical historian and traveler Arthur Mee who  noted in his Kings of England that no pleasanter English  setting could be found than the Wide green, planted with  avenues of trees, which forms the Village street of Palgrave. 

The manor of Palgrave can be dated to a time  before the invasion of the Normans in 1066 when  it was a property of the Abbot of St Edmunds. It  was granted by Athulf, Bishop of Elmham and Earl  Wolfstan to the Monks of St Edmunds in 962 and the  succeeding abbots were Lords of the Manor until the  house was dissolved in 1539. The Abbey was one of the wealthiest Benedictine monasteries in England and developed as a site of pilgrimage after the remains of  the martyred kind, Edmund, were moved to the site in 903. He was killed fighting a great Norse host in 863  and was considered to be the unofficial patron saint of England until the reign of Edward III. 

Palgrave was surveyed in 1086 and found to be a considerable and valuable manor. It was estimated  to be worth £8 a year which was a large amount and actually increased its value since the Invasion by £2.  There were several hundred acres of demesne land and the Abbot was noted as owning 2 rouncies, 12  beasts, 6 hogs, and 8 sheep. A rouncie was a horse used for riding. 

In 1554 the manor was granted to Sir Thomas Cornwallis and his wife Anne. Born in 1518, Cornwallis  was the eldest son of Sir John Cornwallis, Steward of the Household of Edward VI. He trained as a lawyer and  was knighted by the king in 1548. A year later he assisted in the government’s attempts to crush the rebellion  led by Robert Kett and was temporarily taken prisoner by Kett’s rebels in Norwich. After Edward’s death in  1553 he initially supported Lady Jane Grey as queen but rapidly changed his mind when he heard that the  population of London had not reacted well to her accession. After he had sworn his allegiance to Mary, she  made him one her councilors. In May 1554 he was appointed treasurer of Calais and is was around this same  period that he was granted the manor of Palgrave as part of a larger grant including the manor of Brome  Hall. He remained in charge of England’s last foothold in France for four years but was considered by some  too willing to give the town up to the French. 

This was far from true and he repeatedly warned the Queen that the English garrison in Calais was  too weak. In January 1558 the town fell to the French and he was blamed by some. After the death of Mary  he lost his place at court as Elizabeth ousted prominent Catholics. He retired to Norfolk but in 1569 was  arrested in suspicion of aided a rising in the North. Imprisoned for over a year, Cornwallis was released in  June 1570. Though he professed his loyalty to the Queen he retained his Catholic faith, often in secret. He  was official branded a recusant and remained so until his death in 1604. 

The manor of Palgrave descended to Sir Thomas’ son, Sir William and it remained in the possession of  the family until 1823. Sir William’s son, Frederick was created 1st Baron Cornwallis of Brome. There were four  subsequent Barons until Charles Cornwallis, who was born in 1700 was created Earl Cornwallis in 1762. His  son Charles, one of the most famous generals of the American War of Independence and Governor-General  of India, was created Marquess Cornwallis in 1792. Palgrave was sold to Matthias Kerrison of Bungay, who  served as MP for Eye in the 1820s. He was succeeded by his son, General Sir Edward Kerrison of Oakley Park  who commanded a regiment at the Battle of Waterloo. His son, Sir Edward 2nd Bt., died childless in 1886  and his estates, including Palgrave, passed to his sister, Agnes. She was married to Lord William Bateman but  held the manor as Lady Bateman after her husband’s death. In 1920 the manor was purchased with the rest  of the Oakley Estate titles by Adolphus Maskell in 1924. On his death in 1937 the manor passed equally to  his daughters, Hilda Parker and Ruby Malpass. Hilda died in 1959, and Ruby in 1964. Subsequently the manor  has remained in this family until the present day.  

Documents associated with this manor in the public domain:

1271-1275: court rolls Suffolk Archives, Ipswich 1312-1313/1402: minister’s accounts 1314-1679: court rolls  1416-1663: rentals, estreats and accounts (roll) 1500-1600: extent (1 vol) 1546-1546: estreat 1550-1600: memorandum 1555-1577: bailiff’s accounts, 1559-1878: collyer book (lists of holders of office) 1556-1562: account book 1609-1768: surrenders and admissions 1612-1669: court books 1732-1780: court book 1804-1869: court book 1773-1800: rental 1823-1832: court fines received 1887-1897: minute book 1905-1937: court book 1334-1335: rental British Library 1547-1563: court book 1357-1357: custumal 1361-1379: terrier 1386-1562: rental 1561-1562: survey (with transcript) 

1562-1562: list of tenants 

1335-1336: court roll Mannington Hall 

1383-1384: messor’s accounts 

1389-1390: court roll 

1412-1413: court roll 

1341-1422: court rolls Norfolk Record Office 

1542-1543: survey The National Archives 

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Lot #9 of Manorial Services Auction - Summer 2020 - Stephen Johnson

For doyens of English place names, Penistone  - pronounced Penniston - has always attracted  attention for obvious reasons. However the name  itself is a corruption of the original Pengestone,  meaning ‘settlement on the hill’. Those looking for  more lurid explanations may be a little disappointed. 

Penistone is a market in the historical West Riding  of Yorkshire. It lies 8 miles west of Barnsley. It was  and remains a town servicing a rural community  and there has been a sheep market in the town  since it received a royal charter for one in 1699.  The manor of Penistone is one of a number in the  extensive parish and is said to comprise the 1,110  acres of the original eponymous township. 

The lordship of the manor can be dated to before the Norman Conquest when it was held by Alric. He was  an unusual figure in that he was one of the few Saxon thegns who retained their lands after 1066 although  Penistone was absorbed into the newly created Honour of Pontefract, held by the Norman lord, Ilbert de  Lacy. Alric went one better than most of his Saxon counterparts by leaving Penstone to his son, Swein. The  manor remained as a possession this family until it passed from the daughter of Adam FitzSwein to a local  clerk called John de Pengiston. Penistone then remained as an estate of this family until 1306 when it was  granted to William Clarel of Aldwark. This Clarels had founded Tickhill Priory in South Yorkshire and claimed  descent fro the Norman Invasion.  

In 1392, John Clarel, Lord of Penistone made a gift of land for the establishment of a school in the town.  Penistone Grammer has existed ever since and is recorded as the 45th oldest school in England. Its modern  alumni includes the historian Professor David Hay and the England footballer, John Stones.  

The Clarel family remained as Lords of the Manor of Penistone until 1489 but never resided at Pensitone Manor house, which had been built by the Pengistons. They were succeeded by the Fitzwilliam family and  then the Foljmabes of Worksop, one of the major landowners in South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. By  the 17th century the manor has come into the hands of the Bosville family and Geoffrey Bosville, Lord of  the Manor, was instrumental in reviving the market for the town at the ned of that century. Despite protests  from other Yorkshire market towns, Bosville organised a potion, signed by 2000 residents and in 1699 a  Royal Charter was granted to the towns people allowing a three day summer fair (10-12 June) and a weekly  Thursday market every Thursday in front of the church of St. John the Baptist. 

By the18th century the manor came into the  possession of former copyholders in the manor,  the Wordsworth family. This local clan appears to  have resided in the Manor for many generations  prior to their elevation. Nicholas de Wordulworth  is recorded as living here in 1408 and William  Wordelsworth in 1441. By the end of the 15th  century the family had proliferated in the parish  and several branches were established nearby at  Stainborough, the ancestors of the great poet,  William Wordsworth. By the 17th century, Ralph  Wordsworth of Water Hall is described as a  gentleman and certainly a prosperous landowner.  Several of his sons became merchants and increased  the family fortunes considerably. Josias Worsdworth  was successful merchant trading with Sweden and  Russia in the lucrative Baltic trade. His son, Josias  was instrumental in leading the public subscription  drive to pay for and establish the Penistone Cloth  Hall in 1763. However, it was around this time that the family moved from Water Hall to Sheffield. Although William Wordsworth’s family had moved to  Cumbria by the time he was born there in 1770 they remained in close contact with their Yorkshire relatives.  Indeed, Wordsworth married a Yorkshire woman and in later life he investigated his roots there. 

 After the death of Josias Wordsworth the manor passed to his two daughters but was sold soon afterwards  to the Vernon Wentworth family of Wentworth Castle, a few miles to the west. The Vernon-Wentworth  family held the manor until very recently when it was privately sold.  

Manorial Documents Associated With This Manor:

1500- 1600: customs of copyhold tenants Leeds University Library, Special Collections 

1530: extent, with valuation of rents (copy 1753) 

1696: notice of holding court Hull History Centre (Hull University Archives) 

1672: rental, with Hoyland Swaine Sheffield City Archives 

1681-1685: rentals, with Hoyland Swaine 

1743: rentals, with Hoyland Swaine 

1743-1749: presentments, with Hoyland Swaine 

1749: call book, with Hoyland Swaine 

1792- 1792: call book, with Hoyland Swaine 

1792: notice of perambulation, with Hoyland Swaine 

1792- 1792: rental, with Hoyland Swaine 

1792- 1792: verdict, with Hoyland Swaine 

1805- 1805: verdict, with Hoyland Swaine 

1805- 1805: apointment of steward, with Hoyland Swaine 

1808- 1808: rental, with Hoyland Swaine 

1818: papers rel to boundaries, with Oxspring 

1811-1935: court rolls West Yorkshire Archive Service, Kirklees 

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Lot #10 of Manorial Services Auction - Summer 2020 - Stephen Johnson

THE LORDSHIP of Saling is recorded in Domesday  Book (1086) as belonging to Hugh de Ramis, who  attended William, Duke of Normandy, in his invasion  of England in 1066, culminating at the Battle of  Hastings and the killing of the English King Harold II.  Hugh was succeeded in 1090 by son Robert, who  was Lord until his death in 1130, when his cousin  Roger supplanted him. He was a member of the  Knights Templar, formed by Pope Urban during the  First Crusade to help to retake the Holy Land from  the Muslims in 1095. A namesake accompanied  Richard I (the Lionheart) in the Third Crusade of  1189-93. 

Piccots appears to have been an area of the  capital Manor until the second Roger’s time, for  we find Ralph Piccot, or Piccot, Lord of Piccots, a  subinfeudation of the Domesday Lordship. Ralph, who is sometimes called ‘Sir Ralph’, was Sewer (Bailiff) to Alberic de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and he was  succeeded by Sir William Piccot who was Lord in the reign of Henry III (1216-72). He was also Lord of  Piccots in Ardleigh, in Essex, and Saling itself. He held the fee of the King by keeping a sparrow-hawk should  the monarch ever visit. His son and namesake succeeded at the age of 22, dying in 1283. He was to keep  a sparrow-hawk at Court, but at the King’s cost. The King, Edward I, also undertook to maintain for him  ‘three horses, ‘three boys or grooms, and three greyhounds.’ His wife Maud bore him two sons, William  and Robert, the former of whom seems to have suceeded their father. He died in 1334 and is buried at  Dunmow Priory, Essex, of which he was a benefactor. His estate at Piccots was described at the time as  comprising a house, a curtilage (an area of land adjoining a house) of 12 acres, 280 acres of arable, 11 acres  of meadow, 16 of pasture, and 20 of wood. From his tenants on the Manor, he received 17d and a pound  of cumin, a valuable spice. 

William was succeeded by his son John who held 165 acres of the King and 137 acres of Geoffrey de Reynes,  Lord of the adjoining Manor of Raynes. He sold the Manor in 1349 to Thomas de Mandeville and his wife  Elizabeth, who conveyed it later to Sir John HendeHendle was an extremely rich man. He Sheriff of London  in 1381 (during the Peasants’ Revolt) and Lord Mayor 10 years later and again in 1404. In 1407, a charter  mentions that, in addition to Piccots, he was Lord of the Manors of Little Canfield, Little Chifhall, Bradwell,  Panfield, and West Roding, all in Essex, and Lord of Langport, Kingsweld, and Charlton, near Dover, Kent. On  his death in 1418, he gave his mansion in St Swithins, London, and £1,000 to his widow Elizabeth and to his  two sons, he gave each £1,500 in cash, enormous sums at the time, and to the eldest son John, aged nine,  the bulk of his estate. Elizabeth remarried Ralph Boteler, Lord Sudeley. John was Sheriff of Essex in 1443  and 1447 and died before his mother in 1461. His widow was Gresild or Griselda, whose only daughter  and heir Joane married Walter Writtle, an old family. Walter Writtle’s grandson John died without issue,  and Piccots descended to a relative, John Basset, and then to Gregory Basset. Gregory’s daughter Dorothy  married twice to Robert Bonham and Anthony Maxey, who died in 1592. She died 10 years later and her  successors until 1665 were Sir William Maxey, ? Greville, and Antony Massey. The last sold Piccots to Martin  Carter, who conveyed it to a son and namesake of the Revd Samuel Collins, of Braintree, the nearest market  town. Samuel II sold Piccots to Sir Martin Lumley, Bart, whose heir Sir James sold the Lordship to Guy’s  Hospital, the owners until recently, in the form of Guy’s and St Thomas’s Charitable Foundation. Thomas  Guy (1645-1724), founder of Guy’s Hospital, ended his life a very rich man, but started his commercial life by selling Bibles on the black market, it being the law in England that the Bible be only printed and sold by  authority (ie in return for a royalty). Guy profited immeasurably from the South Sea Stock, multiplying his  original investment of £45,400 sixfold before the stock crashed with the widest possible implications for  company investment until the 1840s. For more information on these ancient hospitals, please refer to the  Lordship of Bridewell in our Catalogue of November 2003. Piccots lies in the parish of Little Saling, about six  and a half miles north-west of Braintree. 

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Lot #10 of Manorial Services Auction - Winter 2024 - Stephen Johnson

Seven miles south-east of Stratford is the village of  Pillerton Hersey. Not to be confused with its neighbour, Pillerton Priors, Hersey received its name from the family who were Lords of the Manor in the 13th century. The village  is bisected in the north by the Roman road, known as the  Fosse Way.  

The manor is first mentioned in Domesday Book of 1086 when it was recorded as the proper ty of, Hugh De Grandmesnil, a companion of William, I who is known to have  fought at the Battle of Hastings and the Siege of Leicester two years later when he attacked and destroyed parts of the city.  He was then made Governor of that city by William who also granted him 65 manors in the county and 35 others in the Midlands, including Pillerton Hersey. After his death in 1098 he was buried at St Evroul Abbey in Normandy to whom he had granted his neighbouring manor of Pillerton Priors. Domesday records that Hugh held  

10 hides; there was  

a mill worth 5s.  

and woodland 1 league in length and as much in breadth;  

After Hughs death in around 1098 the manor, with much of his estate, was granted to the Earl of Leicester, who quickly exchanged it with Roger, Earl of Warwick. His son, William, was recorded as holding Pillerton Hersey by a knight’s fee (the amount which was calculated to be enough to keep a knight in the field for a year). 

In 1193 the Lord of the Manor was Gilbert de Wascuil, but he betrayed the Norman town of Gisors  to Philip of France in that same year and his English estates were stripped from him and Pillerton Hersey was given to Hugh de Hersy. There was a counter claim made by Waleran, the Earl of Warwick, but the king asked the Earl allow the grant, and Waleran acquiesced. There followed a period of confusion when the manor was  re-granted to Hugh de Gournay, then to Osbert de Roveray but within days, King John confirmed that in fact, the manor was to be made over to Huigh de Hersy of Pillerton and Kineton. 

Hugh was a loyal follower of John and in the 1204 he was captured by Phillip II of France and held to ransom. His family in England were forced to mortgage his lands to pay it. As par t of this arrangement John agreed that Hersy would give up Pillerton to Hugh de Gournay in return for Kineton but that Hersy could reclaim by plea. After Hersy freed himself from the French king, he returned to England and evidently did receive Pillerton from Gournay since his son, John, is recorded as its Lord in 1211. 

 In 1235 John de Hersy is recorded as holding Pillerton Hersey by a knight’s fee. A John de Hersy is recorded as its lord in 1262, but it is not certain whether this was the younger John, or a son. Similarly in 1279,  John de Hersy was Lord of the Manor. The last of the family was another John, who sold the manor in 1307 to a local landowner, Thomas Wandak and his wife, Alice. It is likely that the Hercys were in some financial distress since Wandak allowed them to remain in the property for the rest of their lives in return for a render  of 6 quarters of wheat and as much of barley. 

Thomas Wandak was Lord of the Manor in 1332 and was succeeded by his son John by 1355. John’s  wife Catherine, appears to have taken the manor after her husbands death as she is recorded as the joint  Lord of the Manor with Henry de Etyndon in 1374.They sold the estate to Thomas de Wencote. By the end 31 Charles Mills of the 14th century Pillerton Hersey had become the proper ty of Sir Philip de Thornebury, who is noted as holding the manor by a knight’s fee from the Earl of Warwick (as its overlord). 

Sir Philip died in 1457 and the manor passed to his nephew, Richard. It remained in the family until  1542 when it was sold to William Whorwood, Attorney General. Whorwood was the son of a Staffordshire  gentleman and trained in law at the Middle Temple. It is possible that, through the patronage of Thomas  Cromwell, Whorwood secured the Parliamentary seat of Downton in Wiltshire in 1529. In 1536 he succeeded Sir Richard Rich as solicitor-general. Four years later he succeeded Cromwell as as chief steward of the lands  of Vale Royal Abbey in Cheshire after the latter’s fall from power. He was then made attorney-general. He was a staunch supporter of Henry VII and was in 1542 was appointed to head a commission to sell Crown lands, much of it seized during the Dissolution of the religious houses in the 1530s.Whorwood was able to take advantage of his position and acquire land in and around the Midlands, including Pillerton Hersey. By the time of his death in 1545 he had become a wealthy man. 

Whorwood was twice married and from each union had a daughter, Anne and Margaret. On his  death the Manor was divided into moieties, one held by Anne’s husband, Sir Ambrose Dudley and the other by Margaret. The former share passed to William Rice but then later reverted to Thomas Whorwood, the  grandson of William, and Thomas Throckmorton, Margaret Whorwood’s husband. In 1593 the manor was  sold to Thomas Underhill. 

 In 1647 Piller ton Hersey was sold by Underhill’s grandson, Thomas, to Thomas and Rowley Ward and it remained with their descendants until 1770 when it was sold to William Sabin. He left it to his sister, Ann Harbridge in 1788 and it subsequently passed to her son Thomas, who died in 1804. In around 1823 it was purchased by Charles Mills of Barford.

Mills was a successful banker at Glyns and is regarded as having saved the bank from collapse in 1772.  Later he became director of the East India Company, eventually becoming its deputy chairman before his  death in 1826. He also represented Warwick in Parliament from 1802.The manor descended with the Mills family, and Phoebe Mills was Lady of the Manor after the Second World War and until her death in 1971 after  which it passed to the present owner.

Documents in the Public Domain Associated with this Lordship:

1670-1670: particular, with Pillerton Priors Shakespeare Birthplace Trust 

1771-1778: court roll 

1799-1799: court roll 

1799-1799: suit roll 

1650-1650: rental, with Pillerton Priors, Warwickshire County Record Office 

1799-1799: jury list 

1799-1799: note of presentments 

1804-1806: court rolls 

1804-1804: rental 

1817-1817: court roll 

1817-1817: description of boundaries 

1817-1817: suit roll 

1817-1817: rental 

1817-1817: jury list 

1828-1828: jury list 

1828-1828: suit roll 

1828-1828: rental 

1828-1828: court roll, with draft 

1848-1848: court roll 

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Lot #9 of Manorial Services Auction - Spring 2024 - Stephen Johnson

Seven miles south-east of Stratford is the village of Pillerton Priors. Not to be confused with its neighbour, Pillerton Hersey, Priors received its name from its long association with religious houses, who  were Lords of the Manor until the Dissolution in the 1530s. The manor can be dated to before the Norman  Conquest, when it was held by several thegns, so named in its Domesday entry; 

From Hugh the Abbey of St Evroul holds 6 hides and i vulgate of land in Pillerton Priors 

Theres is land for 10 ploughs . 

In demesne are 3 ploughs and 13 villains and 23 bordars 

With 1 Frenchman and 3 thens have 8 ploughs . 

There are 12 acres of meadow . 

It was worth £6 now £10  

4 thegns held it freely during the reign of Edward. 

It is possible that the three thegns noted as holding land from the Abbey of St Evroul were those  who held the land before the Conquest and that had a worth £10 meant that it was a comparatively wealthy  manor.

 The Hugh referred to was Hugh De Grandmesnil, a companion of William I who is known to have  fought at the Battle of Hastings and the Siege of Leicester two years later when he attacked and destroyed  parts of the city. He was then made Governor by William who also granted him 65 manors in the county  and 35 others in the Midlands, including Pillerton Priors. After his death in 1098 he was buried at St Evroul which he had granted Pillerton Priors. 

The Abbey of Evroul was a Benedictine House at Orne in Normandy and it administered its English lands from their Priory of Ware in Hertfordshire. Founded as early as 560, Hugh de Grandmesnil’s  brother, Robert, was the Abbot in 1066. In the 14th Century ‘alien’ or foreign religious houses were suppressed  and the manor was granted in full to Ware Priory. However in 1415 Ware itself was suppressed as an alien  priory and its lands and manors, including Pillerton, were granted by Henry VI to a new priory at Sheen in  Surrey. Its Priors continued as Lords of the Manor until that house was itself dissolved in 1539.  

Four years later, Henry VIII granted the manor to the extremely obscure Geoffrey de Shakerley who  almost at once, sold it to William Holte, a merchant tailor from London; and example of the emerging Tudor  Middle Classes. His tenure was very short and he died in 1546 leaving the property to his sister Agnes, wife  of Christopher Alee, a London Cutler. Alee was a prominent member of the guild of Cutlers and is recorded  as owning to messuages (or properties) in Fleet Street, one of which was the White Lion Inn which survived  to the 19th Century. Agnes and Christopher had no children which likely explains their sale of Pillerton  Priors to Henry Warde in 1557. By all accounts, Warde was born in Pillerton Priors and may well have been  a tenant of the Alee. He enjoyed being Lord of the Manor for just one short year before his death in 1558 and he was succeeded by his son William, who was 19 at the time. In 1577, Warde and his wife, Lucy made  a settlement of the manor on their sons Richard and Humphrey and they later sold the estate to Thomas  Broxolme in 1587. By 1594 Pilllerton Priors has passed to Roger Manners, probably by sale. 

Manners was the son of the Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland. As a younger son of a nobleman  he was not eligible to inherit the family estate and instead sought a career in the military, as a naval officer before entering Parliament as MP for Grantham in 1563. His family also gave him access to Court, where he  served as a ‘squire of the body’ to both Queens Mary and Elizabeth. He was greatly liked by the latter and he remained in service to her until 1683 when she allowed him to attend to her only when he wished. The  History of Parliament describes him as a typical courtier: pliable, amusing, ready with tongue and pen, cynical and  engagingly lazy; a keen sportsman, always ready to curtail a letter if called to the pleasure of the chase; an open  handed host, ever anxious to entertain visitors in his ‘poor cottage’ at Uffington, where the hospitality dispensed  was much remarked on. Manners regarded loyalty above all other qualities and when his great-nephew, the 5th Earl of Rutland and his brothers participated in the illfated revolt of the Earl of Essex in 1601 he was  mortified and wrote that he wished that they ‘had never been born, than so horrible offence offend so gracious  a sovereign to the overthrow of their house and name for ever, always before loyal’.

On his death in 1607 he left his manor of Pillerton Priors (also then known as Over Pillerton) to his great-nephew, Oliver Manners. The lordship passed into the main line of the Earl of Rutland, who were raised to the Dukedom of Rutland in 1703. Succeeding Dukes held Pillerton until the beginning of the 19th  century when it was sold to Charles Mills of Barford. Mills was a successful banker at Glyns and is regarded as  having saved the bank from collapse in 1772. Later he became director of the East India Company, eventually  becoming its deputy chairman before his death in 1826. He also represented Warwick in Parliament from 1802.The manor descended with the Mills family, and Phoebe Mills was Lady of the Manor after the Second World War and until her death in 1971 after which is passed to the present owner. 

Documents in the Public Domain Associated with this Lordship:

 1670-1670: particula, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust 

1650-1675: rental, Warwickshire County Record Office 

1800-1850: minute of chief rents 

1817-1817: court roll 

1817-1817: description of boundaries 

1828-1828: court roll 

1828-1828: jury list 

1828-1828: rental of cottages on waste 1828-1828: suit roll 

1848-1848: court roll (draft) 1848-1848: description of boundaries (draft) 

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Lot #3 of Manorial Services Auction - Spring 2020 - Stephen Johnson

Rainham lies a few miles south-west of Rochester,  close to the Isle of Sheppey. It was a separate village for a  thousand years before being absorbed into the development  of nearby Gillingham in the 1920s. It lies on Watling Street, the  Roman Road which linked Canterbury with London.  

The manor of Rainham is often referred to as  Meresborugh or Merethorne, in some instances, and received  its original name from the family who are recorded as its  first lords. During the reign of King John (1199-1216) Peter  de Mere was recorded as the lord of Meres Borough and  Mere’s Court; the two manors being linked for most of their  subsequent histories. The descent of the manor for the next  several decades is rather opaque. It appears to have been  the property of Geoffrey de Meredale before the beginning  of the reign of Edward I in 1272. By this point the manor has passed or been purchased by Sir Roger de Leyborne. Leyborne was a celebrated knight who had killed Arnulf  de Munteny in a tournament before Henry III in 1252. In order to perform penance for his this he went on a lengthy  pilgrimage and was then pardoned by Henry. He was also granted lands belonging to Roger Connell of Kent and it may  have been that the Rainham estate was part of this gift. Despite this, Leyborne was one of those who joined Simon  de Montfort in his civil war against Henry in the 1550s and 60s but split with de Montfort in 1263 and announced his  loyalty to Henry. He fought at two of the great battles of the war; at Northampton and Lewis in 1264. At the battle of  Evesham in 1265 he is supposed to have saved the life of King Henry. He died in 1266 whilst in Gascony raising troops  for a possible crusade. 

The Lordship was subsequently inherited by his son, William, who held his Rainham property by service of  walking principal lardner or Steward of the Larder at the king’s coronation. At his death in 1310 the estate passed to his  daughter Juliana, who out-lived three husbands but died childless in 1367 and the lands and manors escheated to the  Crown. Meresborough was subsequently granted to the canon of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster. It then remained  a possession of the canons for the next two centuries until the first year of the reign of Edward VI (1547). The chapel  became one of the last of the religious houses to be dissolved and once more the manor returned to the hands of the  crown. This was only a temporary measure since within two years it was granted out once more to Sir Thomas Cheney,  treasurer of the king’s household. After Cheyney’s death in 1558 the Rainham property passed to his son Sir Henry,  Lord of Todington who sold it in around 1570 to the London grocer, Richard Thornhill. Five years later the Rainham  estate passed to his son Samuel. He was succeeded by his second son, Sir John Thornhill who isnturn passed his lands  and estates to his son, Charles, during the reign of Charles II. At this point the estate was divided and the Manor of  Rainham or Meresborough was alienated to John Tufton, 4th earl of Thanet.  

After the death of Anne Clifford the vast Clifford estates in the north, including the baronies of Westmorland  and Skipton also came to the Tuftons. John enjoyed these for only a short time, dying within a year of his inheritance.  The estate then passed to his brother Richard, the 5th earl, who died in 1683 and then to his youngest brother Thomas,  the 6th Earl.  

Thomas was politically active and sat as a Member of Parliament for Appleby from 1668 to 1679 , as a  nominee of Anne Clifford. During this time he also served as Groom of the Bedchamber of the Duke of York, (later  James II) and was Lord Lieutenant of Westmorland and Cumberland from 1685 to 1687. At the Revolution of 1688,  which saw the deposing of James III, Thomas was a signature of the Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in  Favour of the Prince of Orange at the Guildhall. On his death in 1729 he had no male heir so the estate descended to  his nephew Sackville. The 7th Earl had served as Member of Parliament for Appleby from 1722 to 1729 and inherited  from his Uncle the office of hereditary sheriff of Westmorland. He consolidated the family’s huge estates and resided  at Hothfield Place, 15 miles from Rainham.

In 1753, on the death of Sackville, the Manor passed to the 8th Earl, Sackville (II). He led a relatively quiet life  and served in the House of Lords as a loyal supporter of the Whig faction. He died in 1786 and was succeeded by his  son, also Sackville, the 9th Earl. In 1799 the Earl appeared before the Court of the King’s bench. He was arrested and  charged with riot and trying to effect the rescue of Arthur O’Connor, who had been arrested for high treason. Lord  Tufton had been trying to release him. Unbeknownst to him, the charges of treason against O’Connor had already  been dropped and he was being held for a lesser charge of a misdemeanour. Tufton was fined £1,000 and sentenced to  spend one year in the Tower of London. He was soon freed and continued to enjoy his career as a fervent supporter  of Fox and the Whigs.  

Sackville died in 1825 and the Lordship of Meresborugh as well as the rest of the family estates passed to the  10th Earl, Charles. Born in 1770 he served in the Regiment of Foot as a captain in the early years of the Napoleonic  Wars. He never married and died in 1832. His successor was Henry, the 11th Earl who had also fought in the French  Wars but later served as MP for Rochester and Appleby. Before his death Henry had vested his estates and the  hereditary sheriffdom of Westmorland to a Frenchman but on his death, in 1849, this was challenged and a special  act of Parliament was passed which abolished any claim to the office of hereditary sheriff and the vast Tufton estate,  including Meresborough, which amounted to over 40,000 acres was granted to Henry’s illegitimate son, Richard, who  had been born in Verdun in France in 1813. Richard was naturalised in 1849 and a year later was granted a royal licence  to adopt the name Tufton. In view of his large estates he was created a baronet in 1851. 

Richard died in 1871 and Meresborough then descended to his son Henry James Tufton. He served as Vice  Admiral of the coasts of Cumberland and Westmorland and was lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria (1837-1901) in  1886. In 1881 he was created 1st Baron Hothfield. Rainham or Meresborough remained in the hands of this family until  the 1985 when it was purchased by the family of the present owner.

Documents associated with this manor in the public domain:

1569-1569: extracts from survey British Library, Manuscript Collections 

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Lot #4 of Stanford & Son's 'Third Auction' - Sept 1964 

 This Manor was conveyed on 18th September, 1876, to the late Dr. Thomas Simpson of Gambrel House, East Street, in what was then Great Coggeshall but is now merely Coggeshall as Great and Little Coggeshall were united a few years ago.

The picturesque village of Rendham lies in the fertile vale of the River Alde, three miles north-west from Saxmundham Station. It is in the Plomesgate Hundred. The late Mr. Joseph Beaumont acted for Dr. Simpson on his purchase and automatically became Steward of the Manor. In those days a Steward’s office was no sinecure, for amongst other duties he might have to collect (either personally or through a bailiff) a large number of quit and free rents and hold the Lord’s courts, viz., Courts Baron, Customary Courts or View of Frankpledge. The second issue of particulars may include the Manor of Barrow-on-Humber, where for many years the firm of Beaumont and Son, Coggeshall, acting as Stewards of the Manor, entertained all the tenants at an annual dinner provided by the Lord. 

Owing to the enfranchisements, i.e., conversion of copyhold properties into freehold, which had taken place during the previous 20 or 30 years, the properties subject to manorial incidents had been reduced to ten, by the time of Dr. Simpson’s, with a total area of just over 60 acres. In the auctioneers’ particulars it was shown that the fines paid on the last admissions to the various properties totalled £423. 

The Court Books and other documents in the possession of the vendors which will be handed over on completion are as under: 

1. vellum bound book 1753–1857 (Vol. VII).
2. calf bound books, 1857–1905.
3. Particulars and Conditions of Sale of the following Manors:
   Lot 1  Earl Soham.
   Lot 3  Rendham Barnies.
   Lot 4  Westleton Cliffs, otherwise Cleaves.
   Lot 5  Rectory of Waybridge, otherwise Waybread.
   Lot 6  Rawbugs in Elmharn (between Halesworth and Harleston).
   Under Lot 2 was offered a Rentcharge of £26 5s. 1d. 

These particulars of sale have interesting notes on customs in the various Manors as to timber and minerals. 

4. Particulars of enfranchisements carried out in 1867 with a final Compensation Agreement under the Law of Property Act, 1925, entered into on 28th August, 1935. 

On the first page of vol. VII appears the following in beautiful copperplate writing: 

CUSTOM 

The Eldest Son is heir. 

William Barnett Gentleman, in the Right of Ann his Wife, late Ann Powell daughter of Seth Powell deceased, LORD. 

Beneath this is written: 

“Purchased of the descendents of this family on 16th day of April, 1796 by me Thos. of Helsale who then appointed Wm. Shouldham Esq. Steward thereof”. 

Items of interest to be found in the Court Books include the following: 

6th March, 1754 (page 3). At a General Court held on this date John Ingham was the Steward. The Homage (i.e., Jury of Tenants) “do say upon oath that every tenant of this Manor that owe suit and service to this Court and have this day made default in their appearance are amerced (in mercy, i.e., fined) three pence a piece”. 

6th April, 1763 (page 14). Here appears a similar item and the amercement remains at threepence a piece. 

11th January, 1765 (page 16). Robert Deal, a copyhold Tenant of the Manor, “put himself in favour of the Lord and Lady and prayeth to be admitted tenant by virtue of the said surrender and will to the copyhold lands and tenements therein devised to him as aforesaid (that is to say) To all that Tenement called Tulgrece with a pightle adjoining containing by estimation 3 acres and half and one yard called Gavoins yard containing by estimation one rood with the Appurtenances in Rendham”. 

11th May, 1782 (page 44). A General Court Baron was held on this date by Richard Crowfoot, a new steward following John Ingham, whose last Court was held on 8th July, 1771. 

11th May, 1782. Here is an example of how Lord of Manors had the right to appoint a guardian of a copyhold Tenant who was under 21. In this case the father of the Tenant was appointed guardian and the custody of his body was committed to Thomas Studd, his father. The guardian had to render a just account thereof and committing no waste. 

The net proceeds of sale of this Manor will be handed to the Trustees of the Church Green Almshouses at Coggeshall, Essex, in accordance with instructions received from Dr. William Simpson and Mr. J. L. Beaumont. They are the personal Representatives of the late Mrs. Emma Simpson, widow of Dr. Thomas Simpson. She was the third largest subscriber to the Fund opened by the late Mrs. G. F. Beaumont to build seven almshouses near Church Green and to the East of the parish church. Although the Manor was conveyed to Dr. Thomas Simpson without any declared trusts, his son feels quite certain that his family had no beneficial interest in the Manor. Hence this desire that the net proceeds of sale should go to some charity. 

The vendors sell as Trustees and the title shall commence with a conveyance on Sale dated 18th September, 1876.
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Lot #35 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

ALSO KNOWN as Ripley Court, this Lordship lies in the parish of Westwell, about five miles from Wye and five from Ashford. It is likely that at the time of Domesday Book, Ripple, also known Ripley Court, formed part of the Lordship of Westwell, for which then entry reads;

The archbishop himself holds Westwell.

In the time of Edward the Confessor it was measured as 7 sulungs

and now at 5. There is land for 18 ploughs. In demesne are 4 ploughs

and 81 villains with 5 borders have 12 ˇ1/2 ploughs.

There are seven slaves, and 1 mill rendering 30d

and 20 acres of meadow and woodland for 80 pigs.

Before the Conquest it was worth £17, now £24.

By the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) Ripple had become detached, both from Westwell and from the ownership of the Archbishops of Canterbury. In 1302 a Richard de Ripley was found to be holding to Lordship. Oddly in some records he is referred to as Miles Archiepi. How long it remained in the possession of this family, who were probably former tenants, it is not known but by the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) it had been transmitted to the Brockhull family. They were succeeded in it by the Idens, who originated in Suffolk and had an estate at Rolvenden in Kent. 

The first known member of this family is Thomas de Iden who lived in the mid 13th century. He was followed by his son, John, who died in 1280. Little more is known of them until the reign of Henry VI (1422-1461) when Alexander Iden was appointed as Sheriff of Kent in replace of William Cromer. What made this appointment more than the usual was that Cromer had been put to death by the peasant rebel, Jack Cade. Cade was an Irishman by birth who had settled in Sussex. He had been accused of murder and fled to France but on returning to England Cade settle in or around Westwell, taking the name Aylmer. In 1450, after the ruthless enforcement of tax collection and Henry blaming the Kentish people for the murder of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk there was a general uprising in Kent. Most of the those involved were farmers and labourers, though there were a number of the gentry. In a short time an indignant army had formed. How Cade came to lead the rebellion not understood, but he marched his army to Blackheath inx London and made camp. The citizens of the city, who shared many of the complaints of the rebels, voted to allowed Cade to enter the capital and he did so, acting with restraint but attempting to establish some sort of authority. However, Cade over spent his goodwill when he ordered the execution of William Cromer, who was regarded as one of the main perpetrators of the government’s oppression. Cromer was beheaded at Mile End and his head paraded through the streets on a pole. Cade’s self control began to slip and he ordered houses of unpopular officials to be plundered and this alarmed the merchant classes in London who had tenuously supported his cause. When Cade withdrew to Southwark he was not allowed to reenter the city and Cade’s forces attacked the gates, killing many. After this the forces of the government began to take the upper hand, a reward of £1,000 was offerexd for Cade’s head and pardons for those who returned to their homes and the rebellion began to crumble.  

Cade escaped in disguise and was pursued by Alexander Iden, who had been made acting sheriff in Cromer’s place. Foolishly Cade fled back to his local area, around Ripple, Westwell and Hothfield. As Lord of the Manor of Ripple, Iden was familiar with the countryside and found the rebel, hiding in a garden. In the struggle of arrest Cade was dealt a mortal blow and was conveyed to London, dying on route. This seen is was captured by Shakespeare in Henry IV Part II, in scene Act Four Scene ten, and includes the exchange;

Cade: (on seeing Iden enter the garden): Here’s the lord of the soil, come

to seize me for a stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave.

Ah villain, thou wilt betray me and get a thousand crowns by the

king for carrying my head to him. But I willl make thee eat eat iron

like an ostrich, and swallow m sword like a great pin, ere thou

and I part.

Iden: Why, rude companion, whatso’er though be, i know thee not: why 

then should I betray thee? Isn't it enough, to break into my garden,

and like a thief to come to rob my grounds, climbing my walls in spite

of me, the owner, but thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms.

The King’s Council offered their thanks to Iden and the reward was duly paid to him. Not long afterwards he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir James Fiennes, Lord of Say and Seal, and the widow of the aforementioned William Cromer. He served as sheriff once more, in 1453. On his death Ripple passed to his son, William who died seised of it in 1423. It them descended to his son and heir, Thomas Iden of Westwell who, like his grandfather served as sheriff of Kent in 1501. Ripple remained in the hands of the Iden family for on or two generations until it passed to the Darrells of Calehill, whose descendent, George Darell sold it to the Baker family in 1553. It remained in the Baker family for a number of generations until it was sold by Giles Baker to Christopher Towers. He in turn sold Ripple to Sackville Tufton, earl of Thanet. It has remained in this family until the present day. Lord Hothfield, the current representative of the family is Lord of the Manor of Ripple and the Vendor.

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Lot #11 of 'Beaumont Collection' Auction - Nov 1954

Rivenhall lies across the London road, between Witham and Kelvendon. The name of the parish seems originally to have been Raven-hall, but the manor has, according to Morant , been called Ruwehale, Ruhall, Renhale, and even Ruinhall. 

This Manor was originally in the hands of the Earl of "Bulloin," and through marriage to King Stephen it came to the Crown, and was then traced to one Roucester of de Roffa who held it under King John. Later it came to Thomas Lord Seales, a renowned soldier whose service to Henry VI was recognised by his being granted the privilege of "having a ship of 200 tons, to transport any goods or merchandise to whatever port he should think fit beyond the seas except the staple of Calais, paying the usual customers." During the Civil War, he , like many others, firmly adhered to the Lancastrian cause and was murdered for the colour of his politics on the 25th of July, 1460. He left no male heir and the Manor then passed to Sir Geffrey Gate who died in 1477. His great-grandson was the celebrated Sir John Gate who held a number of important appointments under King Henry VIII and King Edward VI. "Living in the time of the dissolution of Monastries, he much enlarged his patrimony by the spoils of them.  He was knighted at the Coronation of King Edward VI and constituted Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1552, but unhappily for him zealously espousing the cause of the Lady Jane Grey, he was beheaded ion the 22nd of August, 1553," and the Manor then fell to the Crown. 

It was granted by Queen Mary to one Susan Tonge and after that passed through  a number of hands before becoming the property of Ralph Wiseman in 1590. At the end of the 17th century it was sold to Thomas Western, who descendants held it until the beginning of the present century. It was conveyed to George Frederick Beaumont in 1922 by Lt. Col. Bertram Charles Maximilian Western, with the concurrence of Dame Elizabeth Ellen Western to release it from her charge of an annuity of £800 under the will of her husband, Sir Thomas Charles Callis Western, of Rivenhall Place. 

The earliest document to be handed over is a Roll recording the Court of Thomas Western in 1681. In Charles Callis Western's Court of 27th October, 1797, Philip Griggs was presented for encroachment and Paul Pechell was presented for felling "Elm timbers standing on his Lands holden of this Manor by copy of Court Roll without the license of the Lord whereby according to the custom of the said Manor the last mentioned Lands were forfeited to the Lord of the said Manor." At a Court held in August, 1905, the Homage presented that, since the last Court, William Porter had paid £3 6s. 8d. "being on full third part or value of one hundred an d fifty feet of Ash and Elm Timber to the Lord of the said Manor as his right and said Timber having been felled with the leave of the Lord." On 30th December, 1811, the Homage presented James Sach for making "a clay pit on part of the Lord's waste on the North side of the road between Lanham's Green and Withy's Green within this Manor to the great damage fo the Lord and copyholder of this Manor" and also for "digging the soi of Lanham's Green." He was amerced one shilling for each of these offences. A number of such misdemeanors are to be found enrolled in these records and also an unusually interesting entry, a complete Perambulation of the bounds of the Manor which was recorded in a General Court Baron of Charles Callis Western, Esq., on 7th April, 1825. The Homage made the Perambulation with the Steward, James Western, and a numb er of other tenants. The Court of 4th January, 1834, is the first held in the name of the "Right Honourable Charles Callis Lord Western, Baron Western of Rivenhall," whose last Court was held on 18th January, 1841. 

As late as 1903 a Seizure of a copyhold tenement is recorded because a Cottage had been permitted "to become ruinous whereupon Joseph Smith Surridge (of Coggeshall) the Bailiff of this Manor was Commanded to seize into the hands of the Lord of this Manor the said Copyhold tenement." On 23rd April, 1919, a General Court Baron was held by Lt. Col. Bertram Charles Maximilian Western, D.S.O. ; this was his only Court, for the next is the final General Court Baron and Customary Court of George Frederick Beaumont whose later Courts are recorded as having been held at the Fox Inn, Rivenhall, with Ernest William Saunders (Managing Clerk of Messrs. Beaumont & Son, Solicitors, Coggeshall) as his Steward. 

The name of Western is still kept alive thru the "Western Arms", " an inn at Silver End. 

The manorial documents (insured for £300 premium, 15/- per annum) to be handed over are: 

Court Rolls: 1681-1709; 1710-24; 1763-75; 1778; 1789-95

Court Books:  1730-52; 1755-89; 1796-1892; 1894-1940

Minute Books:  1813-1903

In addition to these documents there will be handed to the purchaser voluminous extracts from the Court Records, containing a summary of Courts held between 1796 and 1924 , with notes of places where Courts were held and the names of Lords and Stewards at each of them, together with an Abstract of the Transactions with took place, showing the amount of fines paid and short descriptions of the properties containing many interesting place names and couloured plans from the Court Records.  

All the interest of the Lords in greens and roadside verges is included in the sale. It is possible that the Vendors will, before the sale, hold a Manor Court and Perambulation. Such a Court would seem to be the best method of ascertaining the wishes of the inhabitants with regard to Lanham's Green, which was ploughed up during the war and has not yet been reseeded. It was a favorite haunt of peapickers and gypsies and it is thought that the inhabitants would prefer that it should not again be available for that purpose. The Lords received  £3 per annum as rent and the purchaser will be entitled thereto so long as the land is still cultivated by the farmer, Mr. Chapman, of Cressing. 

Copies of the Perambulation mentioned above can be obtained from the Solicitors at a cost of 5/- per copy.

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Lot #3 of Manorial Services Auction - Winter 2025 - Stephen Johnson

The manor of Rowley Regis lies in twhosehe very southern peninsula of the pre-1974 county boundary of  Staffordshire. Before the Industrial Revolution of the later 18th century this was a quiet rural village but it was  transformed in the 19th century into a bustling centre of metal working and coal mining.  

At the time of Domesday Book (1086) Rowley actually formed part of Worcestershire but it has been  transferred several times between this county and Staffordshire and even Shropshire. Today it lies in the  modern construct known as the West Midlands but which is more familiarly known as The Black Country  but was, for most of its history part of Staffordshire. 

After the Norman invasion of 1066, Rowley was claimed by William the Conqueror as his own and remained  in the hands of the Crown unto the latter part of the next century and it is from period that it received its  name of Rowley Regis.  

In around 1170 Rowley Regis was granted by Henry II to Richard de Rushall who held it from the king for  an annual fee of £10. He was succeeded in around 1200 by his son, Richard who died in 1240. His successor  was Philip de Rowley, who may have been Richard’s son but of whom very little is recorded other than his  death in around 1270. It appears that Rowley may have been incorporated into the great territorial barony  of Dudley around this time. By the 1280s the manor was found to be held by the Baron, Roger de Somery.  For a family who had a great deal of land there is a relative dearth of references to them. Roger’s father had  re-fortified Dudley Castle in 1260s and the family were prominent supporters of Henry III in his protracted  wars against the Barons, led by Simon de Montford, but there is little beyond the bare facts of their births  and deaths. Roger died in 1291 and was succeeded by his wife Agnes, who seems to have taken control of  the family manors whilst her son, John, was a minor. She died in 1308 and Rowley Regis duly passed to her  son along with the Barony of Dudley. On his death in 1322 the Somery estates fell into some chaos as John  had no heir and various claimants came forward. The territorial Barony was therefore effectively dismantled  and Rowley Regis came into the hands, firstly, of William de Harvey and then John de Hampton before being  granted, by the latter, to Halesowen Abbey in around 1331.  

Founded in 1218 by Peter de Roches, Halesowen was of the Premonstratensian Order and held land in  Worcestershire and Shropshire. In 1464 it absorbed the lands of Dodford Priory and it became one of the  wealthiest religious houses in the Midlands. When the house was suppressed in 1538 most its lands and  manors were granted to John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland but Rowley Regis was retained by the  Crown until 1555 when it was given to John Sutton, 4th Baron Dudley. Sutton came from a relatively poor  noble family and was the nephew of Leonard Graye, Viscount Grane. Grane recommended the young man  to Thomas Cromwell in 1358, writing I beseech your lordship to be good lord unto my poor nephew Dudley.  Dudley’s father, John, had become mired in debt and lost his estates in 1535. He was known to his peers as  Lord Quondam or Lord Has-Been. Sutton the younger served the Crown as a soldier, being made governor of  Hulme Castle in 1547. He was captured by the Scots in 1548, a year after they seized Berwick and £200 was  paid in ransom for his freedom. He succeeded as the 4th Baron Dudley in 1553 and in 1554 Dudley Castle  was restored to him, with Rowley Regis following in the next year. In 1575 he entertained Queen Elizabeth  there, in an attempt to gain her favour.

John’s son and heir, Edward, 5th Lord Dudley, was one of the first landowners to look for income based on  industrial rather than exclusively agricultural production. He shared the spendthrift nature of his grandfather  and in an attempt to pay off his increasing debts he looked to exploit the plentiful mineral rights in his  Worcestershire and Staffordshire estates. He built several blast furnaces and sunk mines, bringing in his  illegitimate son, Dud, to manage his ironworks but his strategy led to very limited results. His personal life  was the subject of much gossip and he abandoned his wife, Theodosia, to live with his mistress, Elizabeth  Tomlinson, who bore him 11 children and was described by as contemporary as a lewd and infamous woman,  a base collier’s daughter. In 1597, his debts had become so extreme that he was incarcerated at Fleet Prison.  He was never able set his finances straight and his debts and scandals followed him to his death in 1643. His  granddaughter Frances and her husband, Humble Ward, a London jeweller, inherited both her father’s estates,  including Rowley Regis, and his debts. She became Baroness Dudley in her own right and the title then passed  to their son, Edward Ward, who became the 7th Baron Dudley. Humble Ward managed to pay off his father-in-law’s debt and the family then largely retreated from public life.  

The manor of Rowley Regis remained with in the Ward family for the next 350 years. Edward Ward, 9th  Baron Dudley was one of the first landowners to use Thomas Newcomen’s steam engines in 1712 to drain  his mines in Tipton. His grandson, John, was elevated to the Viscount Dudley in 1763. John William Ward,  4th Viscount was created Earl of Dudley. He had served as Foreign Secretary in the government of George  Canning. The succeeding Earls held the Manor of Rowley Regis until the end of the 20th century when they  sold it to the present holder. Rental records from the 19th Century show that the manor consisted of several  hundred acres of demesne land, including White House and a considerable number of copyhold tenants. 

A Selection of Manorial Documents in in the Public Domain:

1399-1403: court rolls Keele University Library 

1330-1338: court rolls Dudley Archives and Local History Service 

1346-1346: court roll 

1353-1367: court rolls 

1376-1387: court rolls  

1404-1491: court rolls 

1455-1462: rental 

1518-1524: court rolls  

1531-1533: court rolls 

1556-1573: court book 

1559-1565: accounts 

1559-1568: presentments 

1561-1563: court book 

1593-1597: survey of farms 

1600-1600: extent 

1614-1776: court books 

1622-1692: steward’s papers 

1640-1692: steward’s papers  

1652-1653: presentments 

1665-1675: presentments 

1685-1685: court roll 

1702-1702: suit roll 

1704-1704: estreats 

1710-1821: presentments 

1720-1738: suit rolls  

1723-1729: extracts from court rolls 

1747-1769: suit rolls  

1778-1925: court books 

1786-1796: suit roll 

1834-1858: court rolls 

1883-1884: court rolls 

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Lot #3 of Manorial Services Auction - Fall 2025 - Stephen Johnson

It is unusual for a manor of such stature to come to the market. Rotherham is a very well known  market town of 110,000 people in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Famous as a centre of the coal and steel  industries and home to former Home Secretary, William Hague, the football manager, Herbert Chapman, and  of course, as everyone in Britain knows, The Chuckle Brothers. 

Rotherham was founded in the Saxon period and named ‘homestead on the Rother’ in old English.  Before the Norman Conquest, Acun the Saxon, his English name was Ealhwine, was lord of the manor of  Rotherham but William the Conqueror dispossessed him, and gave it to his half-brother, Robert, Count of  Mortain who was the half-brother of William I, and younger brother of Odo of Bayeux. He married Earl  Hugh of Chester’s daughter, Matilda. He was largest landholder in the country after the King with manors and  estates in 19 counties.  

The Manor was held from Count Mortain by Nigel Fossard. Born in 1040, Fossard had come to  England with the Conqueror and held a number of Yorkshire estates from Mortain, across the three Ridings.  Mortain himself rebelled against his nephew, William II in 1088 and was defeated. His lands were seized and  Fossard became a tenant-in-chief to the the King. Through holding the Honour of Mulgrave he was a feudal  baron and was resident at Lythe Castle. He died between 1120 and 1128 and was succeeded by his son  Robert.  

Over the following decades the Fossard family made a number of sub-infeudations of land in  Rotherham and the Lordship eventually passed to the Vescy family. William de Vescy is noted in a charter  of 1166 as holding 2 fees in Rotherham from Fossard. He died in 1185 and the manor passed to Eustace,  who was an active and vociferous opponent of King John and was one of the Barons who forced the king  to sign the Magna Carta. He was killed at the siege of Barnard Castle in 1216 whilst supporting Alexander II  of Scotland in his war against John. He was succeeded by his son William, who remained loyal to the Crown,  and the family remained as Lords of the Manor until the end of the century. 

In a charter of 1283 Henry III granted a market right to John de Vescy. Two years later this right was  made over to the Abbott of Rufford Abbey and by 1293 the Abbott was in full control of the market. The  Vescy family had, by this time, granted the Manor of Rotherham to the Abbey.  

Early in the reign of Edward I John de Vescy granted to Thomas de Stayngreve, Abbot of Rufford, and to his  monks eight bovates of land at Rotherham, together with the manor of the same, the advowson of the mediety of  the church, the fair, market, mills, ovens, courts, and other appurtenances. 

The transfer of the manor to the Abbey had been a slow process. As early as 1241, Christian de  Vescy had granted the Abbey control of her lands in the town and her son, John, completed it at the end  of the century. John de Vescy gifted half of the manor to Rufford Abbey but the other half was held by the  Lexington family until 1355 when the Abbey purchased this moiety. The Abbots remained as Lords of the  Manor of Rotherham until the Dissolution of the House in 1536.  

Henry VIII granted the Manor to George Talbot, the 4th Earl of Shrewsbury, on October 6 1537.  Court Rolls from this period shed some light on the economy of the town at that time. The court laid out a  series of pains, or fines, to suitors and market traders and these included fines for,

The manorial court therefore had considerable sway over the lives of the inhabitants and the suitors  to the manor, which included the Earl of Cumberland and landed gentry such as the Mountneys, Fitz Williams,  Wentworths and the Resesbys. The Earls of Shrewsbury were one of the most prominent noble families in  England and the Rufford lands added greatly to their estate’s income. The 4th Earl was godfather to Henry  VIII’s sister, Margaret, and fought in France at the Battle of the Spurs in 1513. His son, however remained as a  Catholic after the succession of Edward IV in 1547 and his sympathies towards Rome rendered his political  career over. His successor, Francis the 6th Earl worked hard to appease Elizabeth the 1st; welcoming her to  Chatsworth in 1570 and housing Mary, Queen of Scots at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire.

Francis, his son and heir, Gilbert, the 7th Earl was the last of the Shrewsbury’s to be Lord of Rotherham.  He had no male heir and on his death in 1616 his vast estates were divided amongst his three daughters.  Rotherham and the old Rufford Abbey lands passed to his youngest daughter, Alethea and consequently  to her husband, Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel and then through them to their grandson, Thomas  Howard, 5th Duke of Norfolk. He was declared ‘a lunatic’ in around 1660 and his estates were given over  to the care of his brother, Henry who had successfully petitioned Parliament for the restoration of the  Dukedom after Thomas, the 4th Duke had been executed by Elizabeth in 1572. 

When Henry the 6th Duke, died in 1684, his second wife, Jane Bickerton, who had been his mistress  for many years prior to their marriage in 1676, was granted Rotherham and that it would pass to her  descendants. She died at her home at nearby Holnes in 1693 and her son Lord George Howard became the  new Lord of Rotherham. He died, childless, in 1721 and was succeeded by his brother, Frederick, who also  died, childless, just six years later. The manor then passed to a distant kinsman, Francis Howard, 6th Baron of  Effingham who was then duly raised to the rank of Earl in 1731. Francis was a military man. He served in the  Horse Grenadiers and eventually rose to the rank of Brigadier-General. His son, Thomas, was also a soldier  fighting as a volunteer in the Russian Army during the Russo-Turkish War of 1770. When he later joined  the British Army he refused to fight in North America, claiming that he would not fight my fellow subjects in  America, in what, to my weak discernment is not a clear case. In the House of Lords he resigned his commission  and threw his swords to the floor of the House. He largely withdrew from public life and spent his time in  the construction of his new estate, Thundercliffe Grange in Rotherham. On his death in 1791 the estate and  the Lordship passed to his brother Richard. 

Richard, 4th Earl of Effingham died in 1816 without a male heir and the Earldom became extinct. He  was succeeded by his cousin, Kenneth Howard who was created Baron Howard of Effingham and eventually  had the Earldom of Effingham recreated for him in 1837. He had fought throughout Wellington’s Peninsula  War and was later Lieutenant - Governor of Portsmouth. The succeeding Earls of Effingham remained as  Lords of the Manor of Rotherham until they sold the title to the family of the present holders in 1988.

Rotherham was primarily a market town until the advent of the industrial revolution of the later  18th and early 19th centuries. In the 1480s it was the home of The College of Jesus founded by Thomas  Rotherham, the Archbishop of York who wished to emulate the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. Like  Rufford Abbey, the college was dissolved in 1547. The town remained a small market town unto the middle  of the 18th century when it was connected to the canal system and began to export coal and iron. Like many  industrial towns it grew almost exponentially in the 19th century with the population raising tenfold from  1801. Until the beginning of the 19th century the town was still under the control of the manorial courts but  these were gradually superseded. Rotherham remained a centre of the industry until the latter part of the  20th century.  

Please note that the mines and minerals are reserved in this lot. 

A selection of manorial documents in the Public Domain:

1536-1547: court rolls (22) Leeds University Library 

1547-1553: court rolls 

1553: court roll 

1669-1671: rental, with other manors 

1628: rental with annotations made 

1650, with other manors Bodleian Library 

1650: rental incl list of wages, with other manors 

1645: account of rents and annual charges due out of manor Rotherham Archives 

1732: survey (field book), tenants, acreage and rent 

1764: map (tracing) 

1777-1854: court books (including some minutes of meetings of jurors, 4) 

1792-1797: suit roll 

1833-1843: suit roll 

1861: court book 

1878: court book 

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Lot #8 of Manorial Services Auction - Winter 2021 - Stephen Johnson

Lying 3 miles west of Ipswich, the manor of  Rushmere can be found in the parish of Rushmere  St Andrews. It is a large and open parish, and its  extensive spaces were once used to stage huge  reviews of the troops stationed nearby. 

The manor is an ancient one and is recorded in  Domesday Book. Before the Norman conquest it  had been partially the property of Ely Abbey and  partially that of local landowner called Gurth. By  1066 the Abbey held the whole estate and retained  it after the Norman redistribution of lands. In 1086  the local tenant lord of the Abbey was Turchill and  his land consisted of 80 acres of demesne, and 5  acres of meadow.

Rushmere remained a possession of the Abbots of Ely until the end of the 12th century. By 1203 the manor  had been sold or granted away and was in the possession of William de Freney. Three generation of this  family held Rushmere until the middle part of the 14th century. By 1314 Rushmere had passed, probably  through marriage of a female heiress, to Richard Lenne of Ipswich. He was granted a charter free warren by  Edward II for his demesne lands in the manor in that year. However, he held Rushmere for only a short time  before he died, and it was granted by his wife Emma to Giles de Wachesham and John Nott. Its descent in  the 14th century is a fairly complicated affair. For instance, in 1344 is appears to have been disputed between  a number of parties including John de Caston and his wife Katherine. By 1360 it had come to Sir Thomas de Holbroke who held it until his death in 1376.  

 Rushmere was inherited by Sir John’s daughter, Margery, who married John Fastolf. Soon after the marriage he  released his interest in the Manor to Sir George Felbrigg for whom another grant of free warren was made  in 1384. The Manor remained in the hands of the Felbrigg family until 1423, when, on the death of Sir John  it passed to his only child, Margery. She married Thomas Sampson of Brettenham and he therefore became  Lord of the Manor. His arms can be seen today in the parish church of St Andrews on the arch above the  west doorway. Margery outlived both her husband and her son, George and therefore when she died in  1476, Rushmere descended to her grandson, Thomas. He was an unusual figure for his day in that he refused to accept the dignity of his knighthood and was fined for doing so. It seems likely that Sampson simply could not afford the expense of being a knight. Johns’s son and heir, Thomas certainly did use the title and at his  death in 1512 Sir Thomas left Rushmere to his widow Catherine. She lived until 1546 and was buried at  her ancestral estate at Lodden in Norfolk. She had no living children and Rushmere passed to her nephew  Thomas Felton. 

The Suffolk Feltons were a minor branch of the Northumberland Barons of Mitford. Their principal estate  was at the nearby Manor of Playford. The Feltons were successful local gentry. Thomas’ son and successor  Sir Anthony served as High Sheriff of the county but was involved in a local scandal in 1598. He was publicly  insulted by another local gent, Edmund Withypole for an unrecorded offence against the latter. Sir Anthony  was outraged, drew his sword and demand ed redress by way of a duel. He was retained by friends and  who also prevented him seeking out extracting his vengeance on Withypole over the following days. The Earl  Marshall, the Duke of Norfolk demanded that both men appear before him and reached a judgement against  Withypole declaring that Sampson’s reputation was entirely without blemish. 

Sampson married Elizabeth, the daughter of Baron Grey of Groby, a match which illustrated that his family  was certainly on the rise. His son and successor, Henry, was created a baronet by James I (1603-1625) and  this title passed in turn to his son Henry, who was only five years old when his father died. Sir Henry later sat  as an MP for Suffolk in both the Commonwealth Parliaments up until 1660 and in the Restoration parliament  under Charles II. His son and heir, Sir Adam, inherited Rushmere in 1590 but lived for only another seven  years when the estate passed to his brother Sir Thomas. He served Queen Anne as Comptroller of the  Household and married Lady Elizabeth Howard, second daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. On his death in 1790  Rushmere passed to his daughter Elizabeth, who was married to John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol. The Manor  there came to the family who were held Rushmere until the late 20th Century.  

His son, George, the 2nd Earl, served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1766 and as Bishop of Cloyne in 1767.  Frederick, the 4th earl, was also A Bishop (Derry) but is famed for his great love of travel and there are hotel  Bristols, named in his honour in Paris and Vienna. He was described by Sir Jonah Barrington as a man of  elegant erudition, extensive learning, and and enlightened and classical, but eccentric mind: bold, ardent, and  versatile; he dazzled the vulgar by ostentatious state and worked upon the gentry by ease and condescension.  It is likely that it was this earl who inspired Voltaire to comment; When God created the human race, he  made men, women and Herveys. 

Manorial Documents Associated With This Manor:

1453-1454: rent collector’s accounts Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch 

1757-1789: court fines book, with other manors Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch 

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Lot #7 of Manorial Services Auction - Nov 2022 - Stephen Johnson

(Among 2-3% of manors which are registered with HM's Land Registry - Title #: WR80612)

At the time of the great survey of England, commissioned in 1085 by William the Conqueror and known to  us as ‘Domesday Book’, what was later to become the manor of Sagebury seems likely to have formed part  of the manor of Wychbold. This estate can be dated back to a grant of land made by King Ethelred to the  Priory of Worcester in 692. At the time of the Norman Invasion of 1066 the manor was in the hands of Earl  Godwin but after the Saxon defeat became the property of Osborne Fitz Richard.  

Unlike many of his contemporaries Fitz Richard, was born in England and held an estate before his  countrymen arrived as conquerors. After 1066 his lands increased in extent, and he received a number of  manors in Worcestershire and Warwickshire as a gift from King William and by marriage to a daughter of Earl Ælfgar of Mercia’s daughter. Wychbold was one of the rare manors which was worth more in 1086, after the  invasion and struggle to assert Norman rule, than in the period before 1066. It is interesting to note that salt  production was providing a decent income in 1086. This was still the case in the 19th century when the Lord  of the Manor of Sagebury leased out his valuable salt rights in the area.  

At this early period, Sagebury formed an estate, or part of an estate, within the extent of Wychbold. The  Savage family, from whom the manor takes its name, were also the owners of an estate at Astwood which  was held by them from the Lords of Wychbold, the name being a corruption of Savage-bury. Both Astwood  ‘Savage’ and Sagebury shared a descent until the 14th century when, under the ownership of the Meynells,  they became separate manors.  

The Savage family in Sagebury were wealthy landowners who also held the manors of Newton, Pooley and  Baddesley Ensor in the parish of Polesworth. Geoffrey Savage married Petronillia, the daughter of Sir Hugh  Depsenser who was a powerful nobleman of national importance who would go on to play an integral role  in the faction of Simon de Montfort during the reign of Henry III (1216-1272). Geoffrey Savage must have  been on a comparable social footing to Despenser for this marriage to be entertained. After his death in  1230, Geoffrey’s son and heir, also Geoffrey (III) was a minor and so the care of the family estates passed  to Despenser and Geoffrey duly came into his inheritance at the age of 21 though he only lived until 1248.  He died childless and his estates passed to his uncle, William Savage who himself died childless in 1259. The  Savage estates became divided between his nephew, Thomas de Ednisoure, his sister Lucy and his brother-in-law Hugh Meynill (who had married another of his sisters - Philippa). Ednisoure received Pooley, whilst  Sagebury was allotted to Meynill.  

Meynill, or Meynell as it is spelt in some records, was  born in around 1225 at Kirk Langley in Derbyshire,  though his chief seat was at Meynell Langley in the  same parish. He married Philippa Savage in 1254.  Some records note Hugh as Lord de Meynell but  there is no record of him attending a Parliament.  He is known to have been a benefactor of Yeaveley  Preceptory in Derbyshire, as had been his father, Sir  William. Hugh died in 1285 and Sagebury passed to  his son, Hugh (II). This Hugh died in 1333 but since his  eldest son had predeceased him in 1314, Sagebury  passed to Hugh’s grandson, also named Hugh (III).  Often referred to as Sir Hugh de Meynell, this Lord of Sagebury was summoned to the first Parliament  of Edward III. He is reported, in a number of sources, to have been present at the Battle of Crécy in August  1346 and later taken prisoner in the same campaign.  Four years later he received a grant of free warren for  his demesne lands in Sagebury meaning that he was able to empark some of his demesne and keep game  animals. In 1352 Hugh was again fighting in France,  this time at the English victory at Poitiers on 19th  September of that year. During that battle a squire  by the name of Richard Meynell was killed, and there  is some speculation that this could have been Hugh’s  son. Information on the family is scant but it is known  that Hugh survived the French campaign and died  in 1364. Sagebury, along with the rest of the family  estates, then passed to Hugh’s second son, Ralph, the  last male heir. He was survived by four daughters Joan,  who married John Staunton, of Staunton Harold, and later Sir Thomas Clinton ; Elizabeth who married William Crawshaw; Margaret, married to John Dethick, of  Newhall and Thomasine, married to another member of the Dethick family, Reginald.  

Margaret emerged as Lady of Sagebury and thus, by right of marriage, her husband became its Lord. John  was the son of Ralph Dethick, the owner of Dethick Hall in Derbyshire and a neighbour of the Meynell’s. The  Worcester Visitation record of 1569 points to Margaret and John’s successor being their second son John,  who was born at Sagebury after 1410. He married Jane, a daughter of an unnamed landed family at Sagebury  in around 1417. He lived to be an extremely old man and died in 1503, when Sagebury passed to his son  Richard (II) on who’s death the manor was settled on his eldest son, Richard (III). During the years before  his father’s death Richard had had to deal with a law suit launched against him by his cousin, Thomas Dethick  of Newhall in Cornwall. He claimed Sagebury manor by right of being the grandson and heir of William  Meynell and in so doing attempted to remove ‘Thomas Dethick, bastard from the manor of Savagebury’. There  was evidently some confusion in the former’s mind since the latter, though from Worcestershire, was not  a member of the Sagebury branch and was certainly never Lord of the Manor. A few years later Thomas  of Newhall brought a second case, against Richard, the elder. This time his claim to Sagebury rested on his  assertion that both Richard and himself were grandsons of Margaret Meynell and that his claim on Sagebury  was equal. In fact, Thomas was the great-grandson, and so his second attempt to appropriate the manor also  failed. 

Richard (III) the younger inherited Sagebury in 1526 and was married to Elizabeth Newport. It was not long  before he too faced a challenge to his ownership, this time from Thomas Dethick’s son, William. William used  the same device to claim lineage from the Meynells but, like his father’s ill-fated legal sorties, this too failed  and Richard was secure in his ownership until his death in 1544. He was succeeded by his son, William. Once  more though his right to Sagebury was challenged by a family member, this time by his cousin William, who  himself had been born in the manor, his father being Richard’s younger brother, William. Flying in the face of  all sense and previous judgements, William’s son, John mounted a final legal battle to oust the rightful Lord  of the Manor in 1571 and once again the suit was lost. The date of William’s death is not recorded but it  must have been after 1583 since he is recorded as being in control of the estate in that year and claiming, by  right of the manor, free fishing in Henbrook, the stream which passed through the manor. William was then  followed by his son George, the last of the family to hold the title. George married Margery Tucke in 1587,  and by this time could well have been Lord of the Manor.  

In 1605 George sold Sagebury and its neighbour, Obden, to Edward and Dorothy Smyth who appear to have  been sitting tenants in both manors. As Lords of the Manor their tenure was fleeting and after eight years  they sold their interest in two halves in, 1613. The first, to an alderman of London, George Smythes, possibly  a relative, and the second to Henry and Elizabeth Miles.  

Born in around 1563 at Wyke Court in Somerset, George Smythes descended from a Lancashire family. He  was a member of the Goldsmith’s Company but also took up the law, being admitted to the Gray’s Inn in  1609. Two years later he was elected as Prime Warden of the Company and in the same year became an  alderman of the City. Later on that year he was elected Sheriff of London and the Goldsmith’s company  awarded him a gratuity of £100 ‘towards the tryming of his house and other charges in the time of his Shrievalty’.  Smythes died on 10 July 1615 and in his will he left the ‘manors of Ladysbury and Obden’ to his son Arthur -  having purchased the second part of the estate some months before his death. To the Goldsmith’s Company  he bequeathed ‘one guilt standynge Cupp of the value of thirty and five pounds’. He also directed that a banquet  should be held in his honour at the Company for which he provided £46. 

As a young man Arthur had found himself in debt courtesy of ‘the cunning practise of others’. Presumably he  fell into disreputable company and ran up debts described in legal proceedings brought against him by his  father in law as ‘liberal expenses’. Details of his life emerged during the case when it was found that he had  married Elizabeth Chaffin whilst underage and that, according to her testimony, he had treated her badly and ‘threatening her in verye evill termes and words unbeseeminge a husband’. Furthermore he refused to maintain  his wife or pay off his debts. His father-in-law, Giles Tooker, eventually persuaded Arthur that to save his  estates he must settle them on his wife and son, Arthur. As he grew older he left behind his rakish lifestyle  so effectively that he was knighted by Charles II and in 1630 was appointed as Sheriff of Worcestershire. In  1637 he and his son sold Sagebury and Obden to Thomas Nott. 

Of all the Lords of Sagebury up until this point, Nott was perhaps the most prominent. He was born in  London in 1606, the son of Roger Nott a citizen of the City of London. John entered the Merchant Taylors’  School in 1618 and matriculated at Cambridge University in 1621, finally graduating in 1628 after taking an  M.A. In 1637 he married Elizabeth Thynne of St Margaret’s, Westminster and in the same year bought the  manors of Sagebury and Obden. In 1639 he was knighted and in the following year acquired the remainder  of the crown lease of Twickenham Park, Middlesex, from the Countess of Home. 

When the Civil War broke out in 1641 Nott supplied horses to the King’s army and then he joined it, being  commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was mistakenly reported killed by Parliamentary forces during  their capture of Highworth in Wiltshire in July 1645 and by the end of the year, perhaps sensing the way  in which the war was proceeding he surrendered to Parliament after incurring immense debts. He had  not entirely finished with the royalist cause, since two years later he became involved in an uprising which  erupted in Glamorgan. This began when Parliament announced that all its soldiers who had enlisted after  August 1647 were to be dismissed without pay. This incensed the governor of Pembroke, John Poyer who  mutinied against Parliament and declared for the King. Nott may well have been one of the first Royalists who  came to Wales to assist him in his rebellion. He led a small army to Llandaff but was intercepted by a force  led by Major-General Laugharne and his troops dispersed. Nott managed to escape to England and remain  at large. Nott’s final act of defiance against Parliament occurred in the following year when he fomented  a riot in favour of the king at his Twickenham Park estate. It was quickly put down but Nott was arrested  and brought before the Committee for Compounding where he was found guilty and fined one 6th of his  estate’s worth - £1,257. At the hearing he loudly proclaimed his innocence, placing the blame on his wife.  He even had the audacity to demand money for damages to his property, but his appeals were dismissed by  the committee.  

For the remainder of the Commonwealth period, established  after the execution of Charles I, Nott kept a low profile. Ten years  after the riot he sold his part of Twickenham Park and only after  the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 did he emerge into public  life once more. He was given the post of gentleman-usher and then gentleman of the privy chamber. In both positions he was  close to the king, indeed in daily contact - being gentleman of the  privy chamber carried with it all the responsibilities which the title  suggests.  

Nott was a founding member of the Royal Society and died in 1681. He was succeeded as Lord of the  Manor of Sagebury by his son Thomas (II), of whom we know very little except that he died in 1703 and  was succeeded by his son, Thomas (III). He was eventually succeeded by Daniel Nott, who is identified as  the Lord of the Manor in a record of 1734 in which he appointed a gamekeeper, William Olliffe, for the  manors of Sagebury and Obden. In 1737 however, Nott sold the estate to Elizabeth Wood of Droitwich for  the sum of £5,675 13s 2d. It is described as consisting of ‘All those Lordships and Manors of Obden, Sagebury  otherwise Sadgbuy, in the said county of Worcester, with the rights, members, apputenances to them respectively  belonging and also all that new erected messuage or tenement called Obden with the ground and soil whereon the  old mansion house or capital messuage (before it was burnt down) formerly stood. And also that other messuage  and tenement called Sagebury House to- gether with all houses, out-houses, dovehouses, barns, stables edifices,  buildings gardens, orchards, courtyards, fouldyards and back-sides to the same messuages or tenements.’ 

Elizabeth’s first husband was John Amphlett, whose money the Notts had used to mortgage Sagebury to the  hilt. Elizabeth likely claimed the estate by way of default. Such was the discrimination in law against women  holding property that in 1742, it is her second husband, Thomas Wood, who is described as being Lord of  the Manor of Sagebury and granting a licence to game keep to William Oliffe, who appears to have been the  tenant farmer at Sagebury.  

The next recorded Lord of the Manor is Pynson Wilmot who is also described in a number of sources as a  ‘clerk’ and was a nephew of Simon Wood, owner of the nearby manor of Martin Hussingtree and therefore  likely related to Elizabeth Wood. In 1753, Pynson had a book privately printed in Birmingham and there is a  record of a Pynson Wilmott as serving as Vicar of Halesowen for over 50 years, and this may be our man.  One history notes that Wilmot died in 1784 when his estate passed to his son Robert. However, in ‘The  Heraldry of Worcestershire’ details are reported of a Pynson Wilmot, Vicar of Halesowen who was born in  1705 and died in 1798. To confuse matters more, this Pyson Wilmot was connected to the Bund family, to  whom the manor of Sagebury would later pass. According to the Victoria County History of Worcestershire,  Wilmot’s sister Anne married Thomas Henry Bund, but according to the ‘Heraldry’ descent, Anne was the  daughter of the Reverend Pynson Wilmot. Burke’s Peerage concurs that Anne was the daughter of the  Reverend. However, this entry gives a clue as to the identity of Pynson Wilmot. Anne is described as the only  surviving child of the Reverend and if he did die in 1798 then it would appear that the Pynson Wilmot, who  was Lord of the Manor of Sagebury was in fact, the Reverend Pynson Wilmot’s son, eclipsed in posterity by  the life and death by his father but who in fact was a wealthy man in his own right. He evidently remained  unmarried and when he died in 1784 Sagebury then passed to his brother Robert and then to Anne who  would also eventually inherit the estates of her father at Martin Hussingtree and at Shenstone. 

In 1802, Anne married Thomas Henry Bund. Though the estate at Sagebury actually belonged to his wife,  Bund was recorded as Lord of the Manor of both Sagebury and Martin Hussingtree in 1806 when he  granted licence to George Hartwright to be the gamekeeper for the two manors. This arrangement would  continue until Anne’s death when Sagebury and Obden were willed to Anne’s second daughter, Ursula. She  was married to the Reverend Henry Hill, the incumbent of Lye parish in the county. In 1875 the Hills sold  their interests in Sagebury and Obden to John Corbett. 

The reason for Corbett’s purchase of Sagebury and Obden was directly related to salt. None of the previous  Lords of the Manor of Sagebury appeared to have engaged in this local trade but Corbett was a salt  manufacturer from Staffordshire who had purchased the Stoke Prior Salt Works near Droitwich in 1852.  Born in 1817, he was the eldest son of five to a canal barge carrier who ran his boat from Brierly Hill. Though  he received little in the way of formal education, Corbett was an autodidact in the subject of mechanics. His  private studies eventually enabled him to leave the employ of his father on the barge and at the very late age  of 23 he was apprenticed to William Lester, chief engineer of the Hunt and Brown iron- works in Stourbridge.  Family drew him back once more when in 1846 he was forced to abandon his career as an engineer and  return to the family firm - Corbett & Son - which by this time had become a much larger concern. With  his father he operated a great many barges on the still prosperous waterways between Staffordshire and  London, Liverpool and Manchester. Perhaps sensing that the age of the canal was in decline in the face of  competition from the railways, Corbett sold his firm in 1852 and invested his capital in the Stoke Prior works.

 Corbett was incredibly successful in his efforts. He raised output at the works from 26,000 tons per year in  1852 to an astonishing 200,000 tons by the mid 1870s. It was not for nothing that Corbett was known as  The Salt King. With the money he raised he could become a landowner and so bought the neighbouring  Sagebury estate in 1875 to complete his transformation from bargeman’s son to Lord of the Manor. It is likely  though that he required easier access to the salt riches below the lands of Sagebury rather than the Lordly  honour its possession endowed. However, he tempered his pursuit of riches with a desire to help those who  worked for him. In this regard he was a model employer; providing houses, gardens, school and a wealth of  social activities and amenities. Recognising the dangers of working in the salt works, he banned female labour  in 1859, but to compensate families for the subsequent loss of income, he raised wages for the remaining  male workers. This particular act of philanthropy is commemorated by a window in Stoke Prior Church. By  the 1880s Corbett had decided to devote more of his time to politics and more particularly to the Liberal  party. In 1868 he tested the water by standing for election against Sir John Pakington, the sitting MP. Though he  was defeated the was not deterred from fighting the same candidate six years later in the election of 1874.  This time he triumphed, though the Conservatives would form the government. He remained in Parliament  for the next 15 years though he did not stand out in the chamber as he had done as an industrialist. He was  an effective local MP and was always a supporter of women’s suffrage, one of the first to voice this support  publicly. He retired from Parliament in 1892.   

Locally, Corbett leant his support and wealth to a number of institutions. He provided land and buildings for  The Corbett Hospital at Stourbridge in 1892 and paid for the erection of Salters’ Hall, a large building used  for numerous public uses which has now been demolished. He gave generously to Birmingham University, of  which he was a governor. He died died at Impend on 22 April 1901. 

Though he had two sons, Corbett left his estate to his brother, Thomas. He was separated from his wife, in  1884, which may explain this decision. Thomas died in 1906 and the estate was formed into a trust. The Trust  continued for many years until the Manor was finally settled on Peter Harris who was Lord of Sagebury from  1961 to 1968, when it passed to Peter Harris. There were several changes in ownership until the present  Lord obtained it in 2003. 

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Lot #36 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

SCOSTHROP lies in the parish of Kirby Malham, one mile south of the main village. It is a township which consists of 1,274 acres and is around four miles from Settle. The Lordship lies deep in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, with much of the extent being open moor. There are a number of peaks in the area, including Rye Loaf Hill (1,794 ft) and Parson’s Pulpit (1765 ft). The derivation of Scosthrop is uncertain but one explanation is that it is a combination of the Saxon, "scep" for sheep and the Danish for town, "thorp." 

At an early time the ownership of Scosthrop seems to have been divided between the Barons of Skipton and the Monks of Bolton Priory. The descent of the former follows that of Earl Edwin of Mercia to Robert Romille, it passed to his daughter and followed a female line until vested in William de fortibus, Earl of Albermarle. From his heiress Avelyne it came to Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster, and son of Henry III. After his death it was taken by the Crown and granted to the Clifford family. Bolton Priory was an ancient institution, founded by William Meschines and his wife Cecilia in 1120. It is very likely that Scosthrop was granted out of the baronial ownership as a gift of endowment by Cecilia, who owned the honour in inheritance from her father, Robert de Romille. The house was sited at Emsay, around six miles from Scosthrop. In 1151, after receiving a licence from Henry II (1154-1189) Alice de Romille had the priory moved to Bolton, just north of what is now the city of Bradford, around 20 miles from Scosthrop. As well as this Lordship the priory held the church in Skipton. The accounts of the priory from 1290 to 1325 reveal much of what the house was like. It was recorded as consisting of a a prior, who had lodgings with a hall, chapel and stables. It was medium sized house with 15 canons and two novices. There were about thirty servants and officials who lived there as well as around 150 officials who operated the various Lordships and estates in the priory’s possession. Like many such institutions of the time the religious content of the house was often below what was expected. In 1267, for instance, Archbishop Gifford of York, on visiting Bolton, found that one of the brothers, Hugh de Ebor, had saved up a considerable sum of private money which he had deposited with a nun in York. Vows of silence were flouted and the sick were poorly attended and inhumanly treated. What was worse was that the prior had borrowed heavily from neighbours and owed them around £325.

Giffard ordered the election of a new prior, Richard de Bakhampton who it was hoped would improve things. His successor was William Hog, who had earned the wrath of Giffard for previously being an instigator of trouble. Wig was suspended by Giffard after the prior had organised the release of canons which the Archbishop had interned for correction. Giffard then discovered that the priory had lost a number of estates since it had not paid fealty to Earl of Albermarle as Baron of Skipton. Wig was then removed and another prior, John de Lund was put in his place. However there was little change in the lax attitude of the canons since in 1280 orders were issued to the prior to prevent the canons, ‘wandering the moors’, drinking was proscribed and silence was to be kept at all times, save for worship. 

On another visit in 1286 it was found that Bolton was so far in debt that it could not pay for the upkeep of its canons. This prompted measures to improve revenue and this could account for why half of the Lordship of Scosthrop was granted out to John Lambert the elder, at about this time. Things did not improve at Bolton and in 1290 hospitality was refused to visits on account of the priory having suffered floods and their cattle have died of disease. Any improvements made after this time were ruined by the Scots, who ravaged the area, including Scosthrop in 1320. All the canons livestock had been taken and several buildings burnt. All the incumbents were dispersed to other priories for about four years.

For the next century and there are few records of Bolton Priory. In 1482 Archbishop Rotherham voiced the same complaints against the canons that he 13th century predecessor had. He found that the house was rife with gossip, women, drink and maladministration. He banned any private meeting between canon and a women and ordered that only the prior could receive rents or dues. Improvements were made and by the 16th century its debts had largely been paid off. However this was to prove an indian summer in the affairs of the house. In 1540 a order was received from Thomas Cromwell ordering the Dissolution of the house.

After this the Lordship of Scosthrop passed, in full to Henry, Earl of Cumberland, who was baron of Skipton. This member of the Clifford died in 1542 and Scosthrop passed to his son, Henry, the second earl of Cumberland. This Henry had made a royal match, in 1537, when he married Lady Eleanor Brandon, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and Mary, Queen Dowager of France. Despite this Clifford only ever came to court on three occasions, once at the coronation of Queen Mary, in 1553, on the marriage of his daughter to the Earl of Derby, and to visit Elizabeth I, on her accession in 1558. After his death Scosthrop remained in the Clifford family until the end of the 17th century when it passed to the Tuftons, of Hothfield in Kent, who were the earls of Thanet. It has remained with the Tuftons until the present day, with Lord Hothfield being the current Lord of the Manor. 

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Lot #11 of Manorial Services Auction - Winter 2024 - Stephen Johnson

The Lordship of Shardelowe is a sub-manor of the main lordship in the parish of Tuddenham. It lies  in the attractive village, a few miles south of Mildenhall.  

Before the Norman Invasion of 1066 the manor was held by a Norse freeman named Canute but  when the Saxon thegns were driven from their lands it became the proper ty of Eudo Dapifer. By 1236 it had become vested in Eborard de Trumpington who granted half a knight’s fee to William de Knapwell, and  this may have been the origins of the portion of the manor later to come into the hands of Thomas de  Shardelowe. Later in the 13th Century the manor was held by Peter de Leyham and it was then sold by his  son and heir, Peter, to Sir Thomas de Hemegrave (or Hengrave). 

 Sir Thomas died in 1264 and the next recorded Lord of the Manor was Roger de Trumpeton,  presumably a descendent of Eborard. He died in 1289 but it is supposed that he was merely a trustee of the lordship since in 1316 it was held by Sir Edmund de Hemgrave, Sir Thomas’ son. Sir Edmund served as Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1321 and was also governor of Norwich Castle. At his death in 1334 the estate  passed to his son Sir Thomas. He died in 1349 and is buried at the church of The Black Friars in what is now Great Yarmouth. 

In 1352 Sir Edmund de Hemgrave the Younger gave the Tuddenham estate to Richard de Brews, Thomas de Shardelowes and Edmund de Thorpe in trust. It is from Thomas that the sub-manor received  its name. Sir Edmund’s son and heir, Sir Thomas, is recorded as Lord of the Manor in 1419, the year of his  death. Sir Edmund’s son and heir had died two years before him and so after his passing the manor passed to  William Ampleford. He held a manorial court in 1428 but little else is heard of him or the manor until 1475 when it was in the hands of William Wellys. 

In 1428 it is recorded that Thomas Heigham the Elder, of Heigham. released to Thomas Wellys 

all his right in the lands and tenements with foliage in Tuddenham which formerly belonged to Robert  Shardelow, knt.

 In the same year Wellys settled the estate on his son and heir, John, who lived until 1482. It passed  to his son and heir, Thomas, and his wife Lucy and they were recorded as its Lords in 1495 when the whole  of Tuddenham, including Shardelowes was said to be valued at £6 13 4d per year. 

The descent of Shardelowes from the end of the 15th Century is not clear. By 1548 it was in the  hands of Robert Smyth, but how it came into his hands is not clear. The Smyth family held it until the end of  the 16th Century when it came to the two daughters and heirs of Robert Smyth, who died in 1598, Mary  and Jane. The former was married to Charles Lovell and it appears that the manor then passed to his family. 

 In 1698 the manor passed to John Hervey, son of Sir Thomas Herbey. John Hervey, the 1st Earl, and Lord of Shardelowes, served as MP for Bury St Edmunds and was raised to the rank of earl in 1714. His son, George, the 2nd Earl, served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1766 and as Bishop of Cloyne in 1767.  Frederick, the 4th earl, was also A Bishop (Derry) but is famed for his great love of travel and there are hotel Bristols, named in his honour in Paris and Vienna. He was described by Sir Jonah Barrington as 

a man of elegant erudition, extensive learning, and and enlightened and classical, but eccentric mind:  bold, ardent, and versatile; he dazzled the vulgar by ostentatious state, and worked upon the gentry by ease and  condescension. It is likely that it was this earl who inspired Voltaire to comment; When God created the human  race, he made men, women and Herveys.

In 1826 the 5th earl was created the first Marquess of Bristol. The present Lord of the Manor of Shardelowes is the the 8th Marquess. 

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 Lot #14 of Stanford & Son's 'Second Auction' - Dec 1955

The parish of Shimpling is situated in the Hundred of Diss about four miles therefrom. The Victoria History of Norfolk gives the following translation for the entry for this parish in Domesday Book: 

"6 Sokemen with 32 acres and 1 Bordar and 2 acres of meadow.

Then as now (they had) 1 Plough among them all.

They have been included in the above valuation.

There (was) also a Freeman (with) 40 acres which Fulc (her) holds and 2 Bordars. 

Then as now 1 Plough and 2 acres of Meadow. 

Wood(land) for 4 swine. 

It is worth 10 shillings.

In Si(m)plinga (Shimpling) (are) 1 1/2 Freemen with 14 acres.

Then as now half a plough and 1 acre of meadow worth 28 pence."

According to Blomefield (vol. 1, p. 159) this Manor was owned in Edward the Confessor's reign by Archbishop Stigand of Canterbury, who had a freeman there by the name of Torbert. There was also another Manor there called Gissing which was held by another Freeman.

At the Conquest both Manors were joined up and the whole was given to Roger Bigod and he in turn gave it to Robert de Vais alias de Vallibus or Vaux. A church went with it together with several other Manors elsewhere.

The family of Vais held it for Bigod and his successors until 1237 when Oliver de Vallibus (Vais) granted it to Richard de Rupella (later called Rokele). The Manor was settled in this man and his heirs by Fine to be held of him by Knight Service. Richard de Rupella died in 1287 and at that time John de Vallibus was there. The former then grated it to Richard de Boyland who hold it in trust for Ralph Carbonnell. He in turn held it for Maud the wife of William de Roos who was the co-heir of John de Vaux (Vais). 

Carbonnell then conveyed it to Roger de Schympling who then held it by Knight Service of the heirs of Richard Rokele.

In 1280 Roger de Schympling was lord, the Manor having been settled upon him and his wife Emma in tail. After that it descended to William de Schympling their son and he held it for Richard Rokele at half a fee of the Earl Marshall and the king in capite. 

William de Schympling married Margaret de Tacolveston upon whom the Manor was settled for life in 1305, at which date William de Roos and Maud his wife held part of it so did the latter's sister Petronell de Vaux (Vais). William de Roos eventually purchased a great deal of the town of Shimpling through various people.

In 1345 Roger de Schympling died and the Manor then passed to his wife Emma. At the latter's death it was divided between her three daughters who were Isabel, who was then married to John  Kirtling who had a son and daughter Roger and Emma who died without issue.

The other two daughters were Joan who had Moring-Thorp Manor and Katerine who had Dalling Manor in Flordon.

This particular Manor was allotted to John and Isabel Kirtling, and as a result tof their son and daughter dying without issue both the Manor and Advowson of Shimpling descended to Roger Elyngham who was the son of the marriage between William de Elyngham and Katerine, and he held it in 1401 by half a fee of John Copledick (Knt.) who in turn held it of Lady Roos. She held it of Thomas Mowbray and he in capite of the king. 

The Manor eventually passed, probably by marriage, via heiress to Humphrey Wyngfield who had a moiety of it in 1521, the other moiety was held by John Aldham who died in 1558 leaving his part to his son John, and in 1571 he held it jointly with Bonaventure Shardelow. The Manor was then divided thus; "Aldham had a quarter and a third turn, Shardelow had three parts and two turns." The patron of the Manor was then John Motte who died in 1640 and in 1649 his son John, and the latter's brother James were presented. 

The Mottes had Aldham's part and then purchased Shardelow's part who had obtained in in  1611. They also purchased from John Shardelow Dalling Manor in Florden which he also had, by virtue of it belonging to Shimpling. John Shardelow had originally conveyed these two to Messrs. Skipwith and Barry who in turn had conveyed them to Messrs. Thomas Wales and John Basely and thee two persons conveyed the whole to the Mottes.

From then the combined Manor went to the Proctors who held it for John Buxton of St. Margarets in South Elmham who had it in his wife's right, who was the Kinswoman and heiress of Mr. Proctor, the Rector of Gissing. Shimpling then descended to Robert Buxton who, when he died, left it to his wife, Elizabeth and in 1736, her daughter, Elisabeth Buxton, who was a minor, was both lady and patroness. 

Later Lords were Robert Buxton Clark (1743); Thomas Brooke Morris Clark (1826); and Henry Edwards Paine (1898). Since Mr. Paine's death in 1917 the Manor has been held recently by his devisees and their trustees. 

The following are extracts from the records of proceedings at General Courts Baron held on the dates mentioned: 

8th July, 1743

Lord: Robert Buxton Clark

Steward: Peter Pullyn

"And also the Homage aforesaid present John Muskett and Sir Henry Birks for building (or causing to be built) one Shaddow Porch and one Moatshouse upon the waste of the lord of this Manor and also for enclosing part of the said Wasted and making a Kask Yard of the same to the great damage of the said Lord and his Copyhold Tenants of the said Manour and the said John Muskett and Sir Henry Birks are severally amerced ten shillings and Sixpence each and in case the aid buildings and Kask Yard are not pulled down and laid wasted by or before Michaelmas Day ensuing, they do amerce the said John Musckett and Sir Henry Birks in the further sums of forty shillings each."

11th July, 1751

Lord: Robert Buxton Clark

Steward: Peter Pullyn

"And also the Homage aforesaid present Horace Walpole Esquire and his tenant Samuel Walton for felling of three timber trees from off the Lord's Waste of the Manour of Shimpling, the Property of Mr. Robert Buxton Clare Lord of the said Manour." 

Note: He was the grandson of Robert Walpole, first Prime Minster of England, and founder of the Walpole Press.)

16th June, 1752

Lord: Robert Buxton Clark

Steward: Peter Pullyn

"And sitting this Court the aforesaid William Foster acknowledged that he hold of the Lord of this Manour certain freehold lands and tenements by the yearly rent of a capon and five pence half penny and suit of Court and the said William Foster paid to the Lord of the said Manour One Shilling and Five Pence  Half-penny for a relief of this said premises but his fealty is respited." 

14th August, 1760

Lord: Robert Buxton Clark

Steward: Philip Meadows

"At this Court it is presented by the Homage that it has been usuall and customary for the owners of an Estate in this Parish of Shimpling now belonging to his Grace Augustus Henry, Duke of Grafton, to deliver yearly to the Poor Copyhold Tenants of this Manor one hundred faggotts of wood without any allowance and that this same has accordingly been delivered to the Poor Tenants of the said Manor until within Thirteen years last past in consideration that a former owner of the said Estate was permitted to inclose a lane called Sheepclose and other part of the waste of this Manor and the Homage aforesaid to present that Thirteen hundred fagggotts of wood are now due to the Poor Tenants of this Manor of account thereof." 

9th June, 1783

Lord: Robert Buxton Clark

Dep. Steward: Henry Browne

"The Lord of this Manor granted License to John Francis and his heirs to continue an Inclosure lately made by him with the leave of the said Lord of a certain piece of Wasted of this Manor containing one rood and thirty perches more or less he the said John Francis and his heirs yielding and paying unto the Lord of this Manor or the time being for ever hereafter the yearly rent or Sum of two shillings and six pence on the feast day of Saint Michael the Archangel in every year." 

12th July, 1826

Lord: Thomas Brooke Morris Clark

Steward: Taylor Meadows

"And lastly the Homage aforesaid do present all tenants who owe suit an d service at this Court and have this day made default in appearance to do and perform the same and amerce them three pence apiece." 

The custom of descent was to the eldest  Son. The fines on death and alienation were "arbitrary," abased on two years' annual value instead of a "certain" amount of a few shillings per acre, house, etc.

Records to be handed over are:

Court Books: 1522-1624; 1668-80; 1682-1720; 1720-70; 1772-1804; 1804-64; 1864-1936

Rentals: 1590-1848; 1887-98

Insurance of records:  £400, premium £1 p.a.

Commencement of Title: 20th July, 1898

There is an Enclosure award for the parish of Middleton {date unpublished in this catalogue)}

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Lot #8 of Manorial Services Auction - Nov 2022 - Stephen Johnson

(In association with Strutt & Parker)

There are many unusual looking place names in England, the correct pronunciation of which often defy anyone  but a local. Shovelstrode may be such a place. It is supposed to be pronounced - Shootsrwood - which is thought by  some to be derived from an Old English word for a the poplar tree - schovelerd, though this is open to doubt. It may  also derive from ‘rood’ the traditional English land measurement; there being 4 roods to an acre. 

Shovelstrode lies a few miles east of East Grinstead on the borders of Surrey and Sussex. It is extremely rural  in nature and forms part of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty known as the High Weald.  

The early history of the manor is fairly obscure but it is noted in Domesday Book where it was the property  of Count Robert of Mortain. It is recorded as possessing 1 plough land, with pasture for grazing pigs and was worth  seven shillings. In 1341 is noted that John de Shovelstrode was Lord of the Manor. Later it passed into the hands of  John Aske. In 1543 the Manor was granted by Henry VIII to Sir John Gage and the granted included the following; 

2s 6d From four crofts, part of land called Worsted in Shovelstrode and East Grinstead, of Edward Alfraye 

10s 5¾d From lands called Boteley of Thomas Roydon 

39s 7d From a tenement and lands sometime Richard Geal’s and then William Mustyan’s 

6s 8d From a tenement and lands called Charles and Peckehyll of Thomas Page 

2s From a croft called Thomas Land of John Cromper 

8d From a meadow in Forest Row containing 2a of John Payne of Pykestone 

15d From a toft called Grendler late of Thomas Plawe 

15d From a toft, built upon, called Tryndells, of John Umf 

2s 9d From a meadow called Monkesmead 

Shovelstrode was, for many centuries, in the hands of the Gage family. Sir John Gage was the Chamberlain to  Queen Elizabeth and is mentioned in a legal suit over land in the manor in 1554.  

The Gage family emerged from the 16th century as extensive land owners. Sir John Gage was born at  Burstow Manor in Surrey although the family had originated as minor gentry in Gloucestershire in the 14th century.  Sir John’s father, William was a courtier to Henry VII and he was able to introduce his son to the same court, becoming  an Esquire to the Body of Henry and his successor, Henry VIII. In 1524 he was made comptroller of Calais, England’s  remaining foothold in France and was knighted a year later for his service. In the following year he was promoted to the  position of Vice-Chamberlain of the Household where he would assist the sovereign on diplomatic issues and provide  Domesday entry for Shovelstrode 30 daily reports on the political situation. This position is still filled today, though it is now a role for an elected Member of  Parliament. When the crisis over the divorce from Catherine erupted in the early 1530s, Gage fell out of favour, likely  a reaction to his personal views on the matter. He was a pious man but left the King’s side reluctantly according to his  friend, Sir William Fitzwilliam who wrote that the Master vice-chamberlain departed from the king in such sort as I am  sorry to hear; the king licensed him to depart hence, and so took leave of him, the water standing in his eyes. He returned  to favour on the birth of Prince Edward and was made Comptroller of the Household in 1540, a position he held until  the death of Henry, seven years later. He was also appointed Constable of the Tower of London and in this position he  found himself having to organise the execution of Catherine Howard. During this period he was employed in surveying  former monastic lands in Sussex and in 1543 there followed the grant of the Manor of Shovestrode noted above. His  tasks for the King during this period were varied but often important. He was tasked with the supply of an army for an  attack on Scotland in 1542 and two years later performed the same role in Henry’s abortive invasion of France. After  Henry’s death he was appointed as part of the Regency Council which ruled England when Edward VI was still a minor.  His relationship with the king’s uncle, Duke of Somerset was poor and he was ousted from the council only to rejoin  when Somerset’s own power wained. After Edward’s death in 1553 he publicly denounced the attempt to install  Lady Jane Grey on the throne and was subsequently appointed Lord Chamberlain under Mary. Gage died in 1556 and  Shovelstrode, with his other estates passed to his son, Sir Edward. 

The Lordship remained in the hands of the Gage family for the next 400 years. Sir John Gage was created a  baronet in 1633 and his descendant, Sir Thomas was created Viscount Gage of Castle Bar in County Mayo in 1720. In  1833 a record notes that Viscount Gage held the Manor of Shovelstrode which then consisted of 426 acres.  

Documents associated with this manor in the public domain:

Court Roll 1546 East Sussex Record Office 

Court Roll 1548 

Court Roll 1550 

Bailiff’s Accounts 1562-1563 

Rental 1601

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Lot #37 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

THE FIRST record we have of the Lordship of Sileham occurs during the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) when it is recorded as being in the possession of Walter Auberie. It seems likely to have been in the hands of this family for a number of previous generations. Soon afterwards it came by the marriage of Agnes Auberie to Peter de Meredale. This union produced two sons, William and Roger who were joint heirs of Sileham. This form of inheritance, in which the estate was passed equally to all the sons was known as Gavelkind, and was a practice peculiar to Kent. There seems to have been some sort of family difficulty since in 1313 Peter de Meredale is recorded as appearing at an assize as plaintiff against his eldest son William in order to recover a messuage of the Lordship of Sileham. This was composed of 20 acres and 16s rental of land in Rainham and Hartlip.

How this family argument was settled is not known because the next time Sileham appears in the records it is in the possession of the Donet family. They purchased it after the death of Roger de Raynham in 1332. At the inquisition into Raynham’s death it was found that he held ‘in demesne as of a fee, in the parish of Raynham, one messuage, 50 acres of land, and 10 acres of wood, of the tenure of gaverlkind of the king by the service of 4s 8d.' John Donet died in 1357 and Sileham passed to his son John. He lived for a further six years before it passed to his, unnamed son. James Donet was recorded as holding the Lordship at his death on 22 February 1409 but he here the male line became extinct so it came to his sole daughter and heiress, Margerie. 

Margerie was married to John St Leger of Ulcomb so Sileham came this family. It then remained with them for a number of generations before it came to Ralph St Leger in the 1470s. Ralph was succeeded by his son Anthony, who was born around 1496. This St Leger was one of the first Englishman to go on what would later be termed, the Grand Tour. He was educated in Italy and returned to England as a young man to take up the legal profession at Grays Inn. His education and cosmopolitan refinement meant that he rapidly became a regular attendee at court and was a favourite of the young Henry VIII (1509-1547). He was present at the marriage of Princess Mary at Paris in 1514 and then became one of the suite of Lord Abergavenny. There is evidence that he took an active part of the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey and he attached himself to his successor, Thomas Cromwell. In this role he was an aggressive administrator of the Dissolution of the monasteries which began in earnest in 1535. St Leger seems to have been involved in many of the great events which occurred during Henry’s reign. He was a member of the jury of Kent which found against Anne Boleyn in 1536 and in the same year accompanied the King on his expedition against the northern, Catholic uprising, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. When Henry’s attention turned to Ireland St Leger was chosen to head a commission ‘for the ordre and establisment to be taken touching the hole (sic) state of our lande to a due civilitie and and obedyens, and the advanncement of the publi weale of the same’. He arrived in Dublin in September and immediately had the army dissolved. He set out on a tour of the provinces under English control, known as the Pale, and gave orders that any grievances should be heard. The discretion with which the commission set about it work was much admired and St Leger came to the conclusion that Ireland would be much easier gained than retained.

On his return to England the following year he was appointed to the Privy Council and then knighted. In the October 1538 he went to Brussels to organise safe passage for Anne of Cleves, whom he personally escorted to England. His work in Ireland was rewarded in 1540 when he was made Lord Deputy of the province and appointment which is widely seen as opening a new epoch in the history of Ireland as the English now discarded the old method of trying to rule through the great Irish families and instead moved to a more direct control. The English judicial and administrative system was to be imposed and St Leger was judged the most able man to carry out this task. On reaching Ireland he attempted to pacify the Irish by promising that they could keep their lands in return for the introduction of knight’s service for land tenures. The only noticeable threat came from the O’Toole clan, who St Leger promptly forced into submission. He then erected a Parliament in Dublin and his policies began to bear fruit. Ireland was as quiet as anyone could remember. However St Leger was regarded jealously by some, and one of his officials, Robert Cowley slipped to England to complain to the King about St Leger’s supposed maladministration.  

After subduing the ever rebellious O’Neil clan St Leger then placed an Irishman, the Earl of Desmond as head of the government and all went well until St Leger was recalled to England in 1544. This was a signal to arms and several uprisings sprang up but on his return these died out at once. Problems arose in 1551 when he was asked to tell the Irish Parliament that the English Liturgy was to be imposed instead of the Latin. St Leger was a Catholic and his speech was regarded by the more Protestant members as being somewhat half-hearted. A Campaign began to oust him and a commission was appointed by King Edward to look into the matter. St Leger was forced to come to to face the Privy Council. He easily rebutted any charges against him and remained as lord-deputy until 1556 when his enemies finally forced him to resign over a dubious charge of falsifying his account.

Sir Anthony died in 1559 and the Lordship of Sileham was then sold to Sir Thomas Cheney, knight of the Garter. From him it was later sold to John Tufton, whose son, Nicholas was created earl of Thanet. The Lordship his remained in the possession of the Tufton family until the present day and the current representative of the family, Lord Hothfield, is the Lord of the Manor of Sileham and the Vendor.

Sileham lies in the parish of Rainham, on the River Medway, two miles from Gillingham.

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Lot #38 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

THIS LORDSHIP lies in the parish of the same name, 4 miles north of Keighley. It is a very large area, covering 7,050 acres, including Silsden Moor. It is traversed by the river Aire, which was for many centuries crossed by a three arch stone bridge. It is four miles north from Keighley and five miles south of Skipton. The village and Manor received its name, an earlier version of which is Sighelsden, from its Saxon , owner, Sighel. Silsden means ‘Sighel’s dene’. Silsden once formed a township within the extensive parish of Skipton but was made one in its own right in 1846.

Silsden is mentioned in Domesday Book of 1086, the entry reading,

In Silsden, 5 thegns had 8 curacates

of land to the geld.

The manor has always been held as part of the Barony of Skipton as a consequence after the Norman invasion of 1066 it remained for a short while in the hands its Saxon Lord, Earl Edwin of Mercia. On his death it 1271 it was granted to Robert de Romille. It descended on the female of his descendants until it came to the Earls of Albermarle. After death of William de Fortibus, Earl of Albermarle in 1460 it passed to his daughter Avelyne and then to her husband, Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster and son of Henry III(1216-1272). After his death it was held by the Crown and eventually granted out to the Clifford family. They held it for nearly four hundred years before it passed, on the death of Anne Clifford, to the Tuftons, who were earls of Thanet. Lord Hothfield, who is the current representative of the Tufton family and is Lord of the Manor of Silsden and the Vendor. 

At some point, perhaps in the 14th century, the records show that the Cliffords were granted a biennial fair at Silsden. These took place on the first Tuesday after April 23rd and the first Tuesday after September 16th. There are a number of other historic records which mention the Lordship of Silsden. For instance in the years 1437 the men here are described in the Compotus of Thomas, Lord de Clifford, as ‘nativi’. This meant that their lands, like the other demesnes of the barony, were not held by a knight’s service and were correspondingly measured in oxgangs, a unit of about 13 acres. Land held by knight’s fee was always measured in carucates. The tenants of the manor paid moneys for their services in place of their time, labour or goods, pre-dating the eventual decline of the feudal system. The Compotus reveals the following record about Silsden;

In Christmas term every oxgang paid instead of carriage of wood to the castle,   1d. In Easter term, instead of carrying the lord’s provisions, 4d. At Pentecost

and Martinmas, 12d. The term of St Cuthbert, in autumn, for reaping corn

at Holme and the grange of Skipton Castle, by ancient custom, 18d. In 

Michelmas term, for repairing the roof of the bakehouse and brewhouse in the

castle, and of the Moot-hall in Skipton, together with the corn mill there, 4d.

And for the carriage of the lord’s provisions as often as called upon, with the 

distance of 30 miles from the town, 4d. Lastley for the talliage of every oxgang

4d. In all, 4s 1d for one oxgang.

These tenements were held in pure villenage, that is, entirely by the performance of feudal duty. However, but the 16th century all of them had been converted to copyhold, that is tenures held of of the Lord of the Manor by the payment of a rent in cash or goods. Perhaps the oddest thing about the above account is the establishment of a term after St Cuthbert, who was the patron saint of of Bolton Priory. This local peculiarity was made odder by the fact that St Cuthbert’s feast day was on March 20, obviously not in the Autumn. It would appear that this was one of numerous examples of the way in which rural life unfolded during the era before national standards of time keeping were introduced during the industrial revolution.

The Lordship of Silsden comprises only the area of the township and the manorial court had the right to grant probates of wills and letters of administration, relating to personal estates. These had to be deposited with the steward. As part of its connection with the Barony of Skipton the tenants of the manor of Silsden were required, by ancient custom to keep Skipton town hall and the tollbooth (used to collect market tolls and fines) in good repair.

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Lot #39 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

SKIPTON lies in the West Riding of Yorkshire on the river Aire. It is an ancient market town and received its name from the Anglo-Saxon word for sheep, scep; it being therefore scep-tone, Sheeptown. It was an immense parish , consisting of 25,755 acres and includes the town itself, Skipton Castle and a number of outlying villages.

The Barony of Skipton appears to have been based on an estate which, prior to the Norman invasion of 1066 was in the possession of Earl Edwin of Mercia, one of the great Saxon magnates who controlled much of the north of England. Remarkably it seems as though this estate was one of only a handful which William the Conqueror allowed to be kept by its Saxon lords. Edwin was able to come to terms with Williams and was taken to Normandy in 1067 as an ‘honoured’ guest. It is very likely that the Normans saw that by keeping Edwin on side the task of pacifying the wild, northern reaches of England would be made that much easier. Despite this ‘deal’ Edwin was unable to restrain himself from wishing to avenge the defeat of Hastings and he twice rebelled. On the second occasion, in 1071, he was killed by his own men. Consequently, what was now the Honour, or Barony of Skipton, was granted by William to Robert de Romille. 

Romille was a Norman adventurer, drawn to William by the promise of riches and land. His was an ancient family though rather down on its luck so this was the perfect opportunity to raise itself up again. After the king had granted him his land, Robert set off for Yorkshire and chose an area around Bolton Priory, to be the seat of his barony. This priory was in a dilapidated state so he chose an impregnable site on a cliff-face which had both an elevated position over the surrounding land and an abundance of natural resource. The fact that it was built on solid rock meant that he castle was not pray to the most popular means of siege warfare, undermining. The erection of a baronial castle elevated Skipton from being a minor agricultural village to being an important market town. The protection afforded by a great lord and his castle meant that the population soared. A more detailed account of the castle can be found in the entry for the Lordship of Skipton, in this catalogue.

The Romille family possession of Skipton came to a swift end with the death of Robert. His heir was his daughter, Cecilia and by her marriage to William de Meschines the Barony came briefly to that noble family and then to that of her second husband, William de Traches. Meschines was the brother of Ralph, Earl of Chester and he himself had been granted the area of Cumberland known as Coupland. Here he founded the monastery of St Bees.

However, the estate was in the name Cecilia and on her death it passed to her daughter Alice. In 1154 Alice endowed Bolton Priory and made gifts and a mill and land to the monks of Fountain Abbey. He gift to the former included free chace in all her Lands and Woods within her Fee, with liberty to hunt an to take all manner of Wild Beasts there. Furthermore that she bestowed on them the tenth of all Deer taken within her Lands and Chase in Craven. And also a certain piece of Ground din each of her Lordships, for to make a Grange, for their Tithes with Common of Pasture for their Cattle, together her own, in all her Woods, Moors and Fields during the whole time of Autumn. And being Lady of Skipton Castle, ordained That the perpetual Chaplain celebrating Divine Service every day in the Chappel there, should, in augmentation of his maintenance, receive every Twelve Weeks, one Quarter of Wheat, and Thirteen Shillings four pence yearly, upon Christmas Day for his Robe; out of the Rents of that Castle and Mannor.

From her it came down to her daughter Cicely, who was married to William le Gross, Earl of Albermarle. Again the barony descended to a daughter, Hawise. She was married firstly to William de Manderville who is referred to as being Baron of Skipton in 1189. Born and raised in Normandy, Manderville only came to England after the death of his brother Geoffrey in 1166 meant that he inherited the earldom of Essex. He was received by Henry II (1154-1189) and became a constant companion of his. He was with Henry at Limoges in 1173 and was party to the peace agreement between the King and the Count of Maurienne. When rebellion broke out Manderville remained loyal and led an army against Loius VII of France who had invaded Normandy. Over the next couple of years he was closely involved in all the major events of Henry’s reign. He attested the agreement between the King and the Scots at Falaise in October 1174 and was present at the submission of Prince Henry before his father in April of the following year. In 1177 Manderville took the cross and set out with his friend, Philip count of Flanders and joined forces with the Knights Templar in Jerusalem. He was present at the siege of Herenc and at the Christian victory over Saladin at Ramlah. Manderville then returned to England with a number of silk hangings which he distributed among all this churches. On his marriage to Hawise, in 1180 he came into possession of the barony of Skipton as well as the French earldom of Albermarle which had belonged to his father-in-law. The castle here was burnt by the French in 1188 and Manderveille hasted to France and ought with Richard at the Battle of Poitou in which the French were driven back. At the coronation of Richard in 1189, Manderville carried the crown . His last act was on behalf of the new king, when he was asked to travel to Normandy but died en route and was buried in Albermarle.

Next to take practical possession of the Barony was the second husband of Hawise, William de Fortibus, who through the marriage inherited the Earldom of Albermarle on the death of William Manderville. He took his name from the village of Fors in Poitou and was a commander in the fleet of Prince Richard. He married Hawise in 1190 and died five years later. Hawise married a third time, to Baldwin de Béthune, but died herself shortly afterwards.

On the death of Hawise the Barony of Skipton eventually descended to her son William de Fortibus. In 1213 he was established by King John (1199-1216) at Albermarle and the whole estate was finally granted him in 1215. As well as the barony, this included the Wapentake of Holderness in East Yorkshire which was the seen as the seat of Albermarle power in England. Though his earldom was named after his family’s former French possession (lost by John with the rest of Normandy) it is one of the few titles of foreign significance which was retained for use in England. William’s grandfather had been sometimes styles, Earl of Yorkshire and the Skipton and Holderness estates would have perhaps made this title the more fitting.

William was one of the 25 signatures of Magna Carta which bound King John and his successors to more control by the barons though he is thought to have been to least hostile to the king and went over to John’s side when civil war erupted. When Louis of France captured Winchester in June 1216 however William deserted the King. The fluid nature of Mediaeval politics meant that he changed sides once more when Louis found himself in trouble. After John’s death, Albermarle fully supported Henry III (1216-1272) but was a powerful advocate of the independence of local barons. As Henry began to call magnates to heal, Albermarle reacted by joining the rebellion of Hubert de burgh. He was quickly forced to submit to the King who was them committed to destroying him. In defiance, William again revolted and plundered the countryside of Lincolnshire and attacked Newark Castle. He then set off to capture Westminster and began to issue ‘royal’ commands local officials. In response Henry called on the feudal host and an army was equipped to defeat Albermarle. Consequently his headquarters at Bytham Castle was destroyed and the whole garrison imprisoned. William became a fugitive and sought Sanctuary at Fountains Abbey. There he surrendered to the Archbishop of York on the condition that he could return to Sanctuary if the king showed no mercy. In the tradition of the 13th century Albermarle was pardoned for his rebellion on condition that he was exiled to the Holy Land. He did not go to Jerusalem but instead decided to try his luck in another rebellion. However this was soon defeated and Henry assumed the upper hand against the barons. After this Albermarle appeared to settle for his position and became a diplomatic envoy for the King and in 1241 he set off for the Holy Land but died en route in 1142.

On his death Albermarle’s estates came to his son William who was recorded as being Baron of Skipton at his death in 1260. He in turn was succeeded by his young daughter Aveline, who, during her minority was granted as a royal ward, and Skipton was temporarily assigned to Alexander, King of Scotland. He had married to Henry’s daughter Margaret in 1251 and came to the throne as a baby. He was able to take full control of the Scottish government in 1261 and he continued his father’s policies of peace with England and annexing the Western Isle from Norway. In pursuance of the latter he defeated king Haakon at the battle of Largs in 1263. After this all the western isles came under Alexander’s jurisdiction. He was killed whilst riding in 1286. Henry’s grant of Skipton to the Scottish king was part of his attempts to keep the peace between the two old enemies.

Alexander’s possession of the barony lasted until 1270 when Aveline de Fortibus married Edmund, the second son of Henry. Born in 1245, Edmund had been raised by his mother and had been granted the title, King of Sicily and Apulia in 1255 and became a vassal of the Pope, a scheme which was unpopular in England and was one of the causes of strife between the king and the barons since heavy payments were required to fulfil the grant. The agreement was annulled, due to lack of payments seven years later. In 1167 he was made Earl of Lancaster and received the wealthy Honour of Monmouth. On his marriage in 1170 Edmund came into the possession of the Barony of Skipton. On the accession of his brother Edward in 1272 Edmund was in the Holy Land on Crusade. It seems that this mission achieved practically nothing and it earned him the nickname, Crouchback (or crossed back). On his return to England Aveline died and two years later he married Blanche, the daughter of Robert, count of Artois, a younger son of Louis VIII of France. During Edward’s war with the Welsh in 1277, the earl commanded the king’s forces and continued the task of conquering Wales for the next ten years. When war broke out between England and France in 1296, Edmund travelled to Gascony where he organised raids against the enemy. He laid siege to Bordeux but was beaten back by a superior French force. He died, exhausted from battle in March 1296.

On his death his brother Edward took possession of the barony after buying out a rival claim from a local noble named John de Eshton (see the Lordship of Eshton in this catalogue) and it was retained by the Crown until the reign of Edward II (1307-1327) when it was granted Piers Gaveston, the King’s favourite. Gaveston was executed in 1312 and Skipton was regranted to the family which would hold for next several centuries, the Cliffords.  

This family was an ancient and noble one, with their ancestral estates being in Herefordshire and Robert was among the most illustrious of his family. He was evidently of a martial spirit and in 1295, aged 23, he was made a King’s Captain and Keeper of the Marches in the north toward Scotland. He appears to have raised an army and made several skirmishes into that country. A year later he was summoned by Edward to Carlisle to march with the king in a general invasion of England’s northern neighbour and  was then made one of four guardians of Edwards’ son and heir, Edward. On his accession as Edward II, the new king made Clifford admiral of all England and ˘Lord Marcher. In addition he was bestowed him with the Barony of Skipton in Yorkshire. 

The grant included the barony itself, along with the castle and several Lordships, including that of Skipton itself, Stirton with Thorlby, Silsden, Scosthrop, Gargrave and Eshton. It was divided into three bailiwicks, Ayredale, Malghdale and Kettlewell Dale. To each bailiwick was assigned to a gentleman of the district who accounted to a receiver. To Ayredale was assigned control of the foresters of Elso and Crokeris and to the demesne and parks of Skipton itself. The foresters accounted annually for profits of waifs, agistment, pannage, husset, bark croppings, beestock and turbary. The bailiffs would account for free rents, profits of courts military and wapentake. This structure was almost certainly in place before it came into the hands of Robert de Clifford. It included the forest of Skipton, which stretched between the rivers Aire and Wharf and was measured as containing at least 15,000 acres. Much of the forest was woodland and provided a wealth of economic resources as well as an abundance of game and the Clifford fought a constant battle to preserve deer stock.

Robert was killed at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and was succeeded in the barony by his son Roger, who was a minor at the time of his father’s decease. This was period of almost anarchy as war raged between Edward II and his barons as they grappled over who was to run the state. Robert was drawn to the barons’ cause and fought against the king at the battle of Borough-Bridge. Here he was badly wounded and was arrested. Edward seised Skipton and allowed Clifford to live, which he managed to do painfully until 1327. A month before his death the new king Edward III (1327-1377) reinstated Roger to his estates and on his death they passed to his son, Robert. Sensibly be remained loyal to Edward and lived a peaceful life. dying at Shap Abbey in 1343. Skipton then descended to his son Robert. 

As a young man Robert served the King in France and was present with the Black Prince at the Battle of Cressy. As a reward for his service he received letters patent and is the first member of the family to be formally known as Lord Clifford. His son and heir was his second son, Roger who has been described as a man of ‘much gallantry and valour' and ‘one of the wisest men of his time’. He continued the family’s fighting tradition, and took part in both Scottish and French wars. He took a great interest in developing his estates and in 1367 received a licence to imparked 500 acres of the Barony, which he reserved to himself and his heirs. He died, after a lifetimes devoted service to the Crown, in 1392.

The Barony of Skipton then passed to Roger’s son, Thomas though his two brothers profited from their father’s connections to become notable men themselves. Sir William Clifford was governor of the strategically important Berwick Castle, and Sir Lewis, after serving the Duke of Lancaster in France, during the later years of the reign of Edward III, became a Knight of the Garter and founded the dynasty which today survives as the Lords Clifford of Chudleigh, in Devon. Thomas was by all accounts a wild youth and was, for a time, a favourite of Richard II (1377-1399). He was banished from England in 1387 after the brief civil war which had followed the King’s defiance of Parliament. A year later, his Baronial castle at Appleby in Westmorland was destroyed by the Scots in a serious incursion into English territory. Thomas could do nothing about this since he had fled to Germany to fight the ‘infidels’. He was killed there, in 1393, at the battle of Spruce.

Once more the Barony descended to a minor. John de Clifford was only two years old when his father was killed and he was taken as a royal ward. As a result the Barony was granted, first to Richard’s consort, Anne of Bohemia, who then granted it to John’s mother, Elizabeth to beheld until John’s majority. As he grew John became a favourite at court and accompanied Henry V (1413-1422) on his famous French campaign, being present at Agincourt. Later he was made a Knight of the Garter but was killed at Meaux, after being shot with a cross-bow bolt in 1422. Yet again the Barony descended to child, John’s eldest son, Thomas, who was seven years old at the time of his death. When he reached maturity he again donned armour and fought for Henry VI (1422-1461) in France. He is recorded as having acted with daring and courage at the assault on Poitiers, in 1438. It was deep winter and the ground was covered in snow. Clifford had himself and his men clothed in white, a very early example of camouflage, and he was able to surprise the town’s defenders and take it. He successfully repulsed a bid by the French to retake Poiters in 1440. As the dispute between the houses of York and Lancaster descended into civil war, Clifford was recalled by Henry and became a leading Lancastrian commander. He was killed at the Battle of St Albans in 1455 and was buried at the abbey there. He left nine children, his heir being his eldest son, John.

This John was also killed in the Wars of Roses, on the day before the Battle of Towton, being shot in the neck with an arrow. His heir, Henry was, perhaps rather predictably, only seven years old when his father was killed. After the Yorkist victory of Edward IV (1461-1483), his was deprived of the Skipton estate. Remarkably he spent most of the period living as a shepherd in Yorkshire and Cumberland. During this time the Barony was granted out to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who retained it as Richard III (1483-1485). After Henry Tudor’s victory at Bosworth in 1485, Clifford was restored to his estates in full. After a life as a peasant, Clifford could neither read, nor write but this did not prevent him from taking full control of the restoration of baronial lands, which had fallen into decay during the civil war. On his death, in 1523 the Barony and the rest of the Cliffords estates passed to his son, Henry. 

This Baron of Skipton was created Earl of Cumberland by Henry VIII (1509-1547) and held the offices of Lord President of the North and Lord-Warden of the Marches. He raised armies for Henry and on a number of occasions waged war in Scotland. He married twice, firstly the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the second the daughter of the Earl of Northumberland, thus putting himself in the first rank of Tudor Noblemen. It was during the lifetime of Henry Clifford that Skipton became involved in the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. This was an uprising in the north of England in protest against the religious changes made by Henry VIII. It was led by Robert Aske, who gathered an army with the intention of marching south to persuade to King to alter his policies. The rebels managed to overrun much of Yorkshire and by the end of 1536 only Skipton Castle remained loyal to the Crown. Aske’s two brothers, Christopher and John sided with Henry and they and about forty of their men were chased to Skipton to seek safety with their cousin, Henry Clifford. The earl’s staff deserted him for the rebels and he was forced to call for assistance. The next day Aske’s forces surrounded the castle and the rag bag of retainers and servants managed to use the formidable defences to keep Aske at bay. Unfortunately for Clifford his wife and children were at Bolton Priory nearby and a message was sent to the earl warning him that unless he surrendered they would be taken hostage. They threatened that ‘Lady Eleanor and her infants son and daughters should be brought up in front of the storming party, and it the attack again failed they would violate all the ladies and enforce them with knaves under the walls. The rebels had already killed the Bishop of Lincoln so the threat was taken seriously. In the event the Clifford’s were rescued by Christopher Aske who went out in the night, with the vicar of Skipton and a groom. He sneaked though the rebels’ camp and made his way to Bolton priory. He then rode them back to the castle and to safety. With their leverage against Clifford now gone the rebels began to lose heart. A few days later a knight in full army rode from the Castle through the rebels to Skipton market square and read aloud a royal proclamation calling on the uprising to end and for the rebels to disperse. Pardons to all those taking place would be forthcoming. This appeared to discourage the rebels even further and their army melted away.

On the death of Henry, Earl Clifford, Skipton passed to his son, Henry, the 2nd Earl. He lived until 1570 and was succeeded by the 3rd Earl of Cumberland, George. He died without issue and originally Skipton passed to her George’s brother Francis Clifford, with his daughter Anne to receive £15,000. However, on the advice of her mother, Anne contested the settlement. This case rumbled on for number of months, during which time Anne married Lord Buckhurst. In the same year a court at York granted possession of the Skipton Barony to her Uncle and his son. Both men died within a short period of each other and Anne therefore became sole inheritor of the whole estate. After the death of Lord Buckhurst Anne married Philip Herbert, the earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. He died after a few years and she then remained widow for 27 years, living between Skipton and Appleby Castles, both of which she repaired and restored. she lived until 1675 and was noted in the north for her public and private acts of charity.   

After Anne’s death the Barony along with all the family’s estates passed to her daughter, Margaret who was married to John, Lord Tufton, whose father had been made the Earl of Thanet, by Charles I, in 1628. Through this marriage therefore the Barony came into the family which still holds it today. 

The Tufton family were not as politically active as the Clifford’s had been and had descended from the Toketon family, who had lived in Northamptonshire during the reign of Edward III. They had worked themselves up the social scale steadily and by the mid 17th century had become peers and possessed of a sizeable estate in Kent. After John’s death the Barony descended to the 4rd Earl (Nicholas, the 3rd Earl had died some years previously), John, who died, without issue in year later. The title and estates then passed, in rapid succession to John’s brothers; first Richard, the 5th Earl, who died in 1683, then Thomas, the 6th Earl, who died in 1729. The Earldom and the Barony of Westmorland then descended to his nephew, Sackville Tufton, who became 7th Earl of Thanet. (For a detailed history of this family see the details of the Lordship of Hothfield in this catalogue). Lord Hothfield is the current representative of this family and is the Baron of Skipton.

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Lot #40 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

DESCRIBED AS ‘the Gateway to the Dales’ Skipton lies in the Aire Gap, the entrance to the ancient route across the Pennines. In ancient times Skipton was a small village, deriving its name from ‘Scepton’, meaning Sheep town, in Anglo-Saxon. The town began to prosper after Robert de Romille, was granted the Barony and Lordship of Skipton by William The Conquer in 1171 on the death of its previous owner, Earl Edwin of Mercia. Romille abandoned the Saxon manor house that the Earl Edwin had used for his headquarters and instead erected a castle on the most defensible position in the area. The town developed to provide for the needs of the castle and, in 1203, a Charter was granted for a weekly Saturday markets and a fair to be held every 23 August. The most ancient part of the town is Sheep Street which contains some of the towns oldest buildings and the former toll booth. The town has its own newspaper the Craven Herald, believed to be one of only two such newspapers with the front page dedicated to small advertisements and containing no news . Central to the towns prosperity in the 19th century was the Leeds-Liverpool Canal which runs through it. At 127 miles long, it is the longest single canal in the country.

At the time of Domesday Book in 1086 the Lordship of the Manor of Skipton was held by Robert de Romille. He had been granted the Barony of Skipton, to which the Lordship belonged, in 1071, after the death of the previous owner, Earl Edwin. The descent of the Lordship has matched exactly that of the Barony, and this can be found in detail in the entry for this title in this catalogue. In summary however it is found that the Lordship passed through the female descendants of Romille family to the Earls of Albermarle, from them it came to Edward I and Edward II who granted it out, in 1312 to Robert le Clifford. This family held it until the 17th century when it passed to the Tufton family who were earls of Thanet. It has resided with that family ever since and the present Lord of the Manor is the family’s current representative, Lord Hothfield.

The single most imposing feature of this Lordship was the castle, first erected by Robert de Romille. Romille chose an impregnable site a short distance from the church and erected a keep and a gatehouse, only the former of which now remains. Over the course of the next several centuries various owners improved and added to the fortress. Robert le Clifford, on receiving the castle during the reign of Edward II, set about building seven round towers, with wall up to 12 feet thick in places. Much of the eastern end was built much later by the Earls of Cumberland, in the 16th century. The present entrance, consisting of two round towers, was built by Lady Anne Clifford in 1660’s when she set about repairing the damage inflicted during the Civil War. Though in a good defensive position the castle has always suffered for the lack of a water supply and this made life difficult for the defenders on the three known occasions when it has been attacked. The first was by the Scots in 1320 who ravaged the entire demesne of the Lordship of Skipton. In 1536 in the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the rebels unsuccessfully laid siege to the Castle and finally from 1542 to 1545 Parliamentary forces laid siege for three years with the castle garrison being commanded by Sir John Mallorie.  

After the siege by the ‘Pilgrims’ in 1536 (see the Barony of Skipton in this catalogue for a description of this event) an inventory was made of the munitions held at Skipton and it reveals that the Clifford had used the Castle to hoard, not only the modern equipment of canon and musket, but also a number of medieval pieces which had been retained for many years. An extract of the list reads;

a great chambre for the iron slynge

11 harquebusses of crocke (these were heavy muskets with rests)

1 iyon piece with a chamber (cannon)

1 slynge of iyon with a chambre

harnessess of poudre

43 lead mawles (battle axes)

1 great brandreth (a ¡tripod for holding a cauldron of hot oil)

3 tubbs with saltpeter and a pann (equpment form making gunpowder)

After the Civil War siege in 1648 Parliament ordered that Skipton Castle be demolished. The whole of the castle roof was removed and the west end was dismantled and the stones and lead sold. Such was the immensity of the walls the workmen carrying out the demolition could not finish it. In 1650 Lady Anne Clifford, then Lord of the Manor of Skipton visited the ruin and decided to rebuild it as a residence. This she did, though she was required to remove any niche which could be used to house a cannon. Above the entrance gate is this inscription;

This Skipton Castle was repayred

by the Lady Anne Clifford, Countess

of Dowager of Pembrookee, Dorsett and

Montgomerie, Baronesse Clifford, West

merland, and Vessie, Lady of the Honour

of Skipton in Craven and High Sheriff

ess by inheritance of the countie 

of Westmoreland in the yeares 1657

and 1658, after this maine part of itt had

layne ruinous eer since December 16

48, and the January followinge, when

itt was then pulled downe and demol

isht, almost to the foundation, by the

command of the Parliament, then

sitting at Westminster, because

itt had bin a garrison in the thenn

civil warres in England.

Isa. chap. 58 ver. 12. God’s name be praised.

In the 17th century the castle became a residence of the Cliffords and then the Tuftons.

Skipton is a market town and a weekly market was held every Saturday and two fairs one at the feast of St Martin, the other at that of St John. Beside this in 1596 George, Earl of Cumberland obtained a charter for a market to be held every second Wednesday from Easter to Christmas. In 1577 a dispute broke out between the ‘husbands’ (occupiers of land) and the cottagers. The latter claimed an ancient right to turn their cattle onto the open fields in the Lordship and the occupiers resisted this. The dispute was brought before the Earl of Cumberland who decided that the cottagers did not possess this right. Another manorial dipute arose in 1763 over the custom known as malt-money or ‘mautmoney’. Up until the end of the 18th century there was a sokemill at Skipton and the tenants of the manor paid ‘mautmoney’ to use it. As tenants of the manor they were not allowed to have their corn ground anywhere else. In that year a number of manorial tenants decided that they no longer wanted to pay mautmoney or to have their corn ground in the mill. Sackville Tufton, the Earl of Thanet and Lord of the Manor took the tenants to court at York. At the trial the manorial custom was confirmed as still being in force and the tenants were ordered to pay all costs. It was alleged by the tenants that there were numerous cases of them keeping small ‘steel-mills’ of their own where they ground their corn and that of their neighbours and these people had not been interfered with by the Earl. The prosecutors however proved that these private mills had on several occasions been prevented from operating.   

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Lot #41 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

THE LORDSHIP of Slepe cum Cockamore lies in the parish of Lychet Matravers near to the ancient earthworks known as Bulbury Camp. It is about five miles north of Wareham. 

It is very likely that the Lordship was originally part of the Domesday Manor of Lychet the entry for which reads;

Hugh holds Litchet, of William. Tholi held it in King Edward’s time

and it was taxed for twelve hides.

There is land to eight ploughs.

There are two ploughs in the demense, three servi and sixteen villeins

and eleven coscez with five ploughs.

There are 40 acres of meadow, eleven quarentens of past’ure;

wood, half a league between length and breadth. 

In Wareham two gardens and one bordar. 

It was worth £9 now £10.

Lychet was held after this time for four centuries by the Maltravers family but how and when Slepe cum Cockamore became disassociated from the main Lordship is rather unclear. It is possible that it remained with the Maltravers until their estates passed, on the marriage of the family heiress, Alianor to Sir John Arundel. The Arundel family lost much of its estate during the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) and Lychet was granted to Henry Trenchard. At this time also Slepe is recorded as being held by this family so it is very likely that it descended in this way. 

This family can be traced back to Paganus Trenchard who held lands in Dorset during the reign of Henry I. They remained and resided in Dorset for the next 400 years increasing their wealth with a serious of judicious marriages. Henry was eventually succeeded by his son George, who was knighted by Elizabeth in 1588 and sat in Parliament as a member for Dorset. On Sir George death the Lordship passed to his son’s second wife and then to her son Sir John Trenchard who served as MP for Wareham during the latter years of the reign of Charles I. He was one of those members who argued for the king to be executed, in 1649. During the proceeding Civil War he had fought for the Parliamentary side and caused much consternation in the county in his methods of obtaining money and land from Loyalists. His grandson, and heir as Lord of Slepe cum Cockamore, Sir John Trenchard, was a a prominent politician towards the end of the 17th century. Born at Lychet Matravers in 1640, John matriculated from New College, Oxford in 1665 and then entered the Middle Temple. He cut short his legal career to enter politics as an M.P. for Taunton in 1678. His family’s puritanical and Roundhead past made him a natural plotter against the supposed Catholicism of Charles II and in 1680 he spoke out in Parliament against naming the Catholic James, Duke of York, as heir to the throne. He was a supporter of the king’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth as rightful heir, and he was consequently drawn to his circle. Throughout the early 1680s he was involved in plots and abortive risings. He was arrested in July 1683 for taking part in what became known as the Rye House Plot, but was freed through lack of evidence. After hearing of Monmouth’s landing at Lyme Regis in June 1685 he rejoiced and raced to find his allies. He was dining with his friend William Speke at Ilminster when he was informed of the Duke’s defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor. He is said to have leapt to his feet and mounted his horse, admonishing his friend to do the same ‘least they be seized and hanged for his attachment to the Duke’. He rode to Lychett but instead of going to his house he hid himself in his gamekeeper’s lodge who then smuggled him onto a boat at Weymouth. Tradition says that his friend Speke made it no further than his house where he was found hanging. Before the accession of William III in 1688 during the Glorious Revolution Trenchard returned to England. As a friend of William he had been commissioned to pave a favourable way for the protestant to arrive in England and as a reward Trenchard was made Sarjeant-at-Arms to the King. A year later he was knighted by the king and given the lucrative post of chief justice of Chester. He was then elected as M.P. for Poole and two years later reached the political heights of Secretary of State, in place of Henry Sidney, taking the Northern Department. With this position, which would later evolve into that of the Prime Minister, came a place on the Privy Council. One of Trenchard’s first act was to reorganise the system of spies acting in France and he then set about unearthing Jacobite plots. So zealous was he over this matter that he believed all he was told about a planned rising in Lancashire. He brought several ‘plotters’ before the King’s Bench but the paucity of his evidence led to ridicule and he was politically damaged. Though he remained as Secretary he was increasingly marginalised and died after a run of bad health, in April 1695.   

Sir John was succeeded by his son George and the Trenchard’s continued to hold Slepe cum Cockamore until the 19th century when it it came into the hands of the Erle-Ernle-Drax family, who continue to hold it today.

Documents associated with this Manor:

Court Books 1714-1903 Dorset Record Office

Court Books 1777-1795 

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Lot #3 of Stanford & Son's 'Third Auction' - Sept 1964 

Morant (vol. 1, p. 483) writes: 

“Sneadon Hall is the other Manor I have mentioned in this parish. It is otherwise Sneating and Snetting. The mansion house is near a mile north-west from the Church.” 

This is the endowment or corps of one of the Prebends of the cathedral church of St. Paul’s, London. It hath the 14th Stall on the right side of the Quire and is rated at 100s. 

The Librarian of St. Paul’s Cathedral has provided some information about this Prebend. The Stall of Sneating is on the decani side, i.e., the South side of the quire looking East. He says that originally the income would have been in kind, i.e., barley, oats, later in money, but the amount would vary considerably according to the state of agriculture at any given time (as is the case of fellowship dividends at the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge). 

All Prebendal estates were taken over in 1840 by the newly created Ecclesiastical Commissioners (now the Church Commissioners) saving the rights of the existing prebendaries. The present prebendary of Sneating is the Rev. A. J. G. Hawes, Vicar of All Saints, Fulham. He does not receive any income, but has a stall in the quire, a place in the Greater Chapter and a Saint’s Day allotted to him for an annual sermon. This was the Tuesday in Whitsun week. 

In 1590, when William Cotton was Lord of the Manor, the Circuit of the Manor “with the Meete and Bounds of the same” was made and the description of the perambulation was followed by “The Scite of the Manor with the Demesne Lands”, “The Tenants by Copy of Court Roll according to the Custom of the Manor with their yearly Rents” and the “Rental of the said Manor transcribed 30th November the Revd. Jno Pettingall Doctor in Divinity being the present Prebendary of the said Prebend and Lord of the Manor and so He followed details of the rents collected up to 1848. Against the rent of 6d. payable by Martin Mann is a note “Belongs to a Club”. What Club would this be? See Appendix for the actual wording of The Perambulation, etc. There is another Rental dated 1858 and a third 1701. 

From an entry of a Court Baron held on 23rd September, 1782, it appears that the Reverend George Judd was Lord of the Manor and that his Steward was John Round (no doubt one of the Birch family). 

At that Court the Homage presented that a cottage belonging to Thomas Sorrell and Benjamin Ruffels had burnt down and they were “commanded to rebuild the same before 24th June next on pain of the piece of land upon which the cottage formerly stood being forfeited into the hands of the Lord of the said Manor”. It was bad luck that they should not only lose their cottage but be forced to rebuild it. Probably, in those days, there was no insurance against it. It would be interesting to know when such insurance first became possible. 

On 5th August, 1788, was held the First Court Baron and Customary Court of the Reverend Thomas Carwardine. His Steward was Samuel Annew, who, at the next Court, was replaced by Thomas Probert. The Carwardine and Probert families were related, which no doubt accounted for the replacement. 

The amercement (or fine) for tenants defaulting in attending the Lord courts was raised from 4d. to 6d. The new Lord was evidently not satisfied with the lower fine and wanted to increase his income from the Manor. 

By an Indenture dated 31st July, 1862, the Ecclesiastical Commissioner for England conveyed to Frederic Foaker, of Thorpe Hall, Thorpe-le-Soken, the Manor of Sneating freed and discharged from certain yearly rents charged thereon. By an Indenture dated 11th October, 1872, Frederic Foaker conveyed to John Salmon of Sneating Hall, Kirby-le-Soken, the Manor of Sneating and all Courts Leet Courts Baron Views of Frank Pledge and Perquisites of Courts Fines Heriots Amerciaments issues privileges liberties franchises services of Court Law days waifs and strays felons goods escheats forfeitures royalties reservations and other casualties whatsoever to the said Manor belonging or in any wise appertaining. 

On 22nd May, 1909, the Manor was conveyed by the Trustees of the Will of John Salmon to Henry Edwards Paine. His Steward was George Frederick Beaumont and his Deputy was Horace Frederick Beaumont. 

Col. G. O. C. Probert, C.B.E., of Bevills, Bures, and his son Lieut.-Col. R. H. C. Probert, O.B.E., are descendants of the Thomas Probert mentioned above. 

The records which will be handed over on completion are as under: 

Court and Minute Books: 1737–1759; 1762–1782; 1788–1811; 1817–1821 and 1811–1931.
1590: Rental or terrier and Circuit of the Manor of “the Meets and Bounds”.
1698: Rental.
1701: “Terrar of ye Mannor of Sneating Hall in Essex.”
1908: Rental.
1909: Tenants and Parcels and Particulars of Enfranchisements, 1826–1918. 15 Absolute Surrenders.
1844–1882: 15 Conditional Surrenders and Warrants of Satisfaction.
1877–1922: 5 Draft Admissions.
1919–: 9 draft deeds of Enfranchisement.
1st April, 1909: Particulars of Sale of Sneating Hall residence cottages land and the Manor of Sneating and Prebend of Sneating. 

The vendor as Mr. J. L. Beaumont, who will convey as beneficial owner. The title shall commence with a conveyance on Sale dated 22nd May, 1909.
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Lot #12 of Manorial Services Auction - Summer 2020 - Stephen Johnson

South Rauceby lies in the North Kesteven district of  Lincolnshire, 3 miles west of Sleaford. This an area of  large scale arable farming on fertile fen soil. The township  measures some 2430 acres. It was the site of a medieval  beacon, lit in times of danger. Reportedly it could be  seen as far as way as Donington, ten miles to the East.  

The history of the Manor can be traced to before the  Conquest when it was held by the Saxon thegn, Turvert,  who was lord of a number of manors in Lincolnshire and  Nottinghamshire. After 1066 the land was stripped from  him and granted to the Bishop of Durham. When South  Rauceby was assessed for Domesday Book in 1086 it  was found to be held by Aland, his vassal and populated  by 15 sokemore and 6 bordars. The former were a  class of tenants peculiar to Eastern England, especially  in what had become to be known as the Danelaw. They  were neither wholly free nor bonded to their lord. They  could buy and sell their own land and pay tax on it but  were required to do service at the lord’s court, or soke.  Aland’s manor consisted of nine carucates of land and a  further five oxgangs of land belonging to the Gemote-house. This was something like the manor house or  manor court.  

The actual descent of the Manor from these early times is quite difficult to discern, as is admitted by several Lincolnshire  historians. It is likely that the manor remained in the hands of the Bishops until the 13th century. It then appears that  it may have passed, with North Rauceby, to Hervy Bagot, who is recorded as holding land here at this time. In 1302  the largest landholder is recorded as the St Lando family but their descent is very obscure. It may be that the Lordship  passed to the Earl of Stafford, who held land here in the late part of the 14th century. However, there are a number  of other candidates as lords of the manor of South Rauceby in the 15th century including Sir Hugh Basinges, who was  seized of two messuages here in 1446 and John Tiptoft. Earl of Worcester, was seized of a manor at his death in 1470. 

The picture becomes clearer when we reached the 16th century. In 1540 John Puller died in possession of several  lands and tenements in South Rauceby, more than likely including the manor. In 1553 the Manor was purchased by Sir  James Huddleston of Sawston. By the end of the 16th century the manor was in the hands of the wealthy Carr family.  Robert Carr is noted as Lord of the Manor in 1593. The Carrs or Carres, flourished in the area around Sleaford and  south Lincolnshire gradually acquiring lands such as South Rauceby to become one of the wealthiest family’s in the  area. Indeed, by they were known locally as the “Landlords of Lincolnshire”. They had originated in Northumberland,  near to the Scottish border and liked to think of themselves as being ‘bred from Saxon stock’. The Northumberland  properties remained in Carr hands until the late 17th century. The family prospered until the end of the 17th century,  serving the Crown in a number of capacities and accruing land. After another local landlord, Baron Hussey of Sleaford  involved himself in the uprising against Henry VIII, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Carrs were able to obtain the  latter’s estates after they were forfeited to the Crown. This only added to their growing wealth. In 1590, John Carr was  recorded as being Lord of 21 manors in Lincolnshire and the principal landowner in 50 parishes. In 1611 Edward Carr  was created a baronet. He first married Katherine, daughter of Charles Betts of Thorpe Hall, near Louth in 1607 and  he he two sons and a daughter from the marriage. He became High Sheriff of the county in 1615 and died in 1618.  His wife, who became known as Dame Anne Carre, was left a jointure of 5,000 acres. Lucy, the only daughter, died on  a visit to the Cromwells of Ramsey Abbey, and was buried there.

South Rauceby is included in a codified ledger made of the Carr estates in 1637 alongside their other manors of New  Sleaford, Old Sleaford, Quarrington, Spalding Hall, Kirkby le Thorpe, Asgarby, Holdingham, Whitehall, Anwick, Anwarby,  Brauncewell, Barrowpies, Little Hale, Dunsby and Whaplode. Rochester Carre was named after his godfather,  Sir Robert Carre, Viscount Rochester, and Earl of Somerset, who was mentioned in the memoirs of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, between 1653 and 1658 when the great military leader died. The Carres split  between Royalists for King Charles I and Parliamentarians. One son Robert took control of Asgarby Hall  forcibly and was put out by the Cromwells after complaints to the High Sheriff, who sent troops under two  colonels to achieve this. At his Restoration in 1660, Charles II granted the property to Robert Carre who  had been knighted. Sir Robert settled it on his mother who began improvements to the estate at Asgarby.

The last of the male line was Sir Robert Carr and his daughter and heiress Isabella married the 1st Earl of  Bristol, in 1688. The Carr estate thus passed to the Hervey family in whom it remains today. The Herveys  are an ancient family. The name is of Frankish origin and derives from ‘warrior of the host’ and the first of  the family in England are thought to have arrived with the Conqueror. The present Marquess of Bristol can  trace his lineage directly to John Hervey who was born in around 1290. The family achieved national status  during the reign of Henry VIII, when Sir Nicholas Hervey was appointed as ambassador to the Holy Roman  Emperor Charles V. John Hervey, the Ist Earl, and Lord of South Rauceby, served as MP for Bury St Edmunds  and was raised to the rank of earl in 1714. His grandson, George, the 2nd Earl, served as Lord Lieutenant of  Ireland in 1766. Frederick, the 4th earl, was Bishop of Cloyne and later Bishop of Derry but is famed for his  great love of travel and there are hotel Bristols, named in his honour in Paris and Vienna. He was described by  Sir Jonah Barrington as a man of elegant erudition, extensive learning, and enlightened and classical, but eccentric  mind: bold, ardent, and versatile; he dazzled the vulgar by ostentatious state, and worked upon the gentry by ease  and condescension. It is likely that it was this earl who inspired Voltaire to comment; When God created the human  race, he made men, women and Herveys.     

In 1826 the 5th earl was created the first Marquess of Bristol. The present Lord of the Manor of South  Rauceby is the 8th Marquess of Bristol.  

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Lot #42 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

LYING ON THE river Stour, Spetisbury, also spelt Spettisbury, is a pleasant village, 3 miles from Blandford and 11 miles from Poole. It is a rural Lordship and the parochial extent is 2,229 acres. Within this extent is Spetisbury Rings or Crawford Castle. This is a series of Saxon earthworks in which a number of relics have been found.

The earliest mention of this Lordship occurs in Domesday Book, compiled in 1086. This records that Spetisbury was divided into two parcels. The entries read;

The Count holds Spetisbury himself. Three thanes held it before

1066. It paid tax for 1 1/2 hides. Land for hald a plough.

1 smallholder and 1 villager.

Meadow, 16 acres, pasture 34 acres.

Of this land the Count has i virgate of land and 3 acres.

Robert 3 virgates and 6 acres.

Value of the whole, 18s.

William holds Spetisbury. Aethelward and Godric held it

as two manors before 1066. It paid tax for 7 hides and 1 virgaye

of land and 6 acres. There is land for 6 ploughs. In Lordship 4 ploughs;

6 Slaves and 10 Villeins and 12 borders.

10 villagers and 12 smallholders with 6 ploughs.

A mill which pays 12s, 50 acres of meadow and pasture five quarentens

and a half long and two broad. 

the value was 100s now £7 10s.

The two owners were Count Mortain and William de Moion. Very soon after this date however the entire Lordship came into the hands of the Earls of Mellant and Leicester. During the reign of Henry I (1100-1135) Earl Robert granted Spetisbury as an endowment to Preaux Abbey in Normandy. A small monasteryˇ was built here as a cell of the main house ‘to take care of their concerns’. The Priory’s possessions here are mentioned in a number of records from the 13th century. In 1205 Spetisbury was found to contain 300 sheep, eight cow, sixteen oxen and numerous pigs. It was worth £20: a considerable reduction from its Domesday figure. In 1293 the lands Preaux were valued still lower at £12 though it appears that a number of plots had been granted out, particularly to the abbess of Tarent Abbey. 

In 1318 it was noted that the Lordship of Spetisbury was held by the abbot of Preaux Abbey who in addition was the Lord of the manors of Tofts in Norfolk, Aston in Berkshire and Warmington in Warwickshire. Seven years later Edward II ordered that all the possessions of ‘alien’ priories, that is, institution outside England, should be valued and recorded. In the reign of his son, Edward III all the lands of French institutions were seised by the king. Spetisbury was therefore taken by the Crown and held until 1415, when it was granted to the Carthusian Monastery of Witham in Somerset. This was one of only nine such houses in England since the order was one of the strictest. Witham was the first Carthusuan monastery in England and had been founded by monks from the Grand Chartreuse near Grenobel in 1179. Witham was of personal interest to Henry II, perhaps as part of his penance for the murder of Thomas Becket. The Cartusians laid down strict guidelines for the monks. They were required to live in rough cabins and punishments for transgressions were harsh.

The grant of Spetisbury to Witham was confirmed by Edward IV in 1464 and it remained as Lord of the Manor until it was dissolved in 1536. The Lordship was then granted to Charles, Lord Mountjoy. His father, William Blount had been a member of the Privy Council under Henry VII and master of the Mint throughout England and Calais, a very lucrative position. Charles was the 5th Baron Mountjoy and served as a commander in Henry’s largely unsuccessful French campaigns of the 1530s. On his death in 1544 he appears to have been succeeded in the Lordship of Spetisbury by his mother Margaret, Lady Mountjoy. Eventually it passed to her grandson John, the 6th Baron Mountjoy who held it until 1575. It was then sold to John Bowyer of Beer, in Somerset, whose father, Walter had been a successful London Merchant and bought a country estate after the Dissolution. Though unremarkable in terms of politics the Bowyers continued to hold the Lordship for the next 100 year. John was succeeded by his son Edmund in 1598. He lived until around 1623 when Spetisbury descended to his eldest son Edmund. 

In 1697 the last of the Bowyers sold the Lordship to Robert Henly of Bristol who died in 1709 when it came to his son and heir, John. He had no children and bequeathed Spetisbury to his wife for life. On her death it passed to her brother Henry Fane of Wormsley in Oxfordshire. He served as a Member of Parliament for the borough of Lyme. After a number of years Fane passed the Lordship to his son, Francis, who was also a Member of Parliament, for Dorchester. Fane lived at the manor house in Spetisbury and made a number of improvements. He was a good land lord, repairing his tenants cottages, which had fallen into conspicuous decay and gave them ‘an unusually decent and comfortable appearance’. 

In 1809 the Fanes sold the Lordship to Henry Bricklade who in turn sold it on the Richard Edward Drax. It has remained in the possession of this family until the present day.

Documents associated with this manor:

Survey 1414 Somerset Record Office

Court Book 1534-1553 Public Record Office

Court Book 1707-1773 Dorset Record Office

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Lot #4 of Manorial Services Auction - Spring 2020 - Stephen Johnson

This unusual title lies in the township of Stalmine  within the extensive parish of Lancaster. Although it is  called a Bailiwick it was, in effect, a lordship of the manor  and descended as such a property would. The Bailiwick  is sometimes described as a sub-manor of the extensive  Lordship of Furness and was under the control of a bailiff  appointed by the Lords of Furness, the monks of Furness  Abbey. Stalmine lies in the part of west Lancashire known  as Fylde. It derives its name from the Old English and Norse  for a pool or stream at the mouth of the river, steall mynni.  It is situated a few miles north of Blackpool, on the banks  of the river Wyre.  

The monks of Furness Abbey held land in Stamine  since the 12th century. Founded in 1127 by Stephen, count  of Boulogne (later King Stephen ) and Mortain, lord of  Lancaster, the monks of Furness were granted lands by a  number of large landowners including land in Stalmine.  

In around 1200 Robert de Stalmine granted the monks a carucate land called Corocola, from his estate and this  formed the basis of the subsequent Bailiwick. In 1240 William’s son John, granted more of the family estate in the  township to the abbey, as did his brother, Henry. Over the next 200 years they expanded their lands in the township  and according to the antiquarian Francis Gastrell, In the course of time the Abbey of Furness obtained the whole manor,  which fell to the King at the Dissolution.

A survey of the manor of Furness, made in 1649, notes that; 

There is a rent due from divers tenements in the Bailiwick of Stalmyne, which is right due and belonging to manor of  Furness, as part of the said manor and payable to the receiver-general of the county of Lancaster and is per annum £10 2s  10d. Memorandum - the Bailiwick of Stalmyne is about ten miles from Lancaster and about thirty miles from the Manor of  Furness.

Grants were made throughout the 13th century and the monks became primary landlords. In 1318 for  instance, an agreement was made between the abbey and Nicholas de Oxley who was seeking to improve five acres  of waste. The monks insisted that they be allowed to continue to drive their cattle over his land to the common. At  the same time de Oxley released his claim to a water mill which they had constructed near to their demesne farm,  known as The Grange. 

The abbey of Furness was dissolved in 1536 and its lands and estates were seized by the Crown. This meant  that the succeeding kings and queens of England, from Henry VIII to Charles II were Lords of the Bailiwick. In 1666,  as a reward for his help in restoring the Stuart dynasty to the throne, the Lordship of Furness and the abbey estates,  including Stalmine, were granted to the Duke of Albermarle. Born the second son of a Devon gentleman, Monck was  consequently required to seek employment and chose a military career. He sailed in the English fleet which attacked  Cadiz as a sixteen year old in 1625. In 1627 he was forced to flee England after accidentally killing an under-sheriff,  who had arrested his father for debt, during a fight. He joined the navy and was part of the failed attempt to relieve  La Rochelle in the following year. Throughout the 1630s Monck remained a military man, slowly working his way up  the ranks and gaining a reputation as a brave and efficient soldier. By the time of Charles I’s campaign against the  Scottish Covenanters in 1639 he had been raised to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. When the Civil War broke out in  1642 Monck was serving under the Earl of Leicester trying to suppress a rebellion in Ireland. Monck urged Leicester  not to take an oath to support either Parliament or the king but after an agreement was reached with the rebels in  September 1643 the Irish army returned to England to bolster the royal forces. A few weeks later Monck was captured  by Parliamentarians at the siege of Nantwich on January 1644 and he spent the next few months as a prisoner in the  Tower. He was eventually freed after promising not to fight against Parliament but to help suppress the continuing  rebellion in Ireland. In September 1647 he was appointed as major-general of the Parliamentary forces in eastern Ulster and he remained here until and after the king’s execution in 1649. 

In 1650 the Commonwealth launched a war against the royalist rump in Scotland and its leaders appointed  Cromwell to lead it. Cromwell had been impressed with Monck and gave him a command and his subsequent  successes in capturing a number of key posts led to his appointment as governor of Edinburgh in 1651. When  Charles II made a dash for England Cromwell followed and left Monck in charge to mop up any resistance, which he  accomplished with remarkable speed. His talents. especially in his use of artillery, were now considered precious by  the Commonwealth and Monck was deployed at sea to fight the Dutch in 1652 and 1653.  

The general professed to be a soldier, not a politician and that his loyalty was to his men. This served him well  after Cromwell abolished the Regicide Parliament in April 1653. Monck issued a statement to the effect that he was  too busy fighting the Dutch to be able to intervene in the domestic situation. The powers granted to him enabled  him to become the virtual dictator north of the border for a time. When Cromwell died in 1568 Monck immediately  offered his support to his successor, Richard but felt ill at ease with the new regime and in turn it looked upon him  with some suspicion. At this point representatives of Charles II began to make overtures towards the general to  garner his possible support for a restoration of the monarchy. As the Parliamentary regime collapsed into disarray at  the beginning of 1660 Monck marched his army south. He was instructed to protect Parliament but he could see that  the tide had turned against the republic and when he was contacted by representatives of Charles once more Monck  assured him of his loyalty. His military control of London ensured that the the throne could be restored peacefully  and when Charles landed at Dover in May 1660, Monck was the first to embrace him. Within weeks his loyalty was  rewarded with his elevation to the dukedom of Albermarle. The lands and estates of Furness Abbey were granted to  him in 1666.  

The duke remained a loyal officer of the kings army and navy until his death in 1670 when his title and estates  passed to his son Christopher who died childless in 1687. Stalmine passed, with the rest of his possessions to his wife  who survived to the age of 95, dying in 1734. From her it passed to her second husband, Ralph, 1st duke of Montagu.  He was succeeded by his son, John, 2nd duke of Montagu who had no sons and passed his estates to his daughters  Isabella, wife of Edward Hussey, earl of Beaulieu and Mary who married George Brudenell, 4th earl of Cardigan  (great-grandfather of Cardigan of the Charge of the Light Brigade). In 1801 an inquiry was made into the estate of  Edward, earl of Beulieu, who was declared a lunatic. The Bailiwick is listed as one of his possessions.  

Stalmine consequently passed to Mary’s daughter, Lady Elizabeth Montagu who was married to the 3rd duke  of Buccleuch. The Bailiwick then remained in the hands of the Dukes of Buccleuch until the death of the 5th duke in  1827. In 1835, Francis, Duke of Buccleuch sold a huge part of his Lancashire Estate to Peregrine Towneley for £99,000,  an astonishing amount at the time. This conveyance included the Bailiwick of Stalmine and the various rents which  issued from it, which totalled £10 10s 1d per year. Rents were collected in Stalmine for Towneley in 1846. 

The Towneley Estates eventually passed to the Lords O’Hagan and the Bailiwick was sold the present owner  at the beginning of the century.  

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Lot #12 of Manorial Services Auction - Winter 2024 - Stephen Johnson

The Lordship of Stanton Drew lies in the parish of the same name, between Pensford and Chew Magna. Perhaps the most notable feature in the Lordship is a large standing stone known as Hautville’s Quoit. This was once a much larger rock, supposed to have weighed over thirty tons, but it was gradually chipped  away over the centuries as the local inhabitants used it for mending their roads and houses. The quoit is a  late megalithic burial chamber with a romantic legend attached to it. It is said that a local giant, named Sir  John Hautville, lived nearby on the top of May Knole Hill and was supposed to have thrown the rock from the summit of his hill to were it now lies when he was clearing land to build a house. In the 18th century  it is recorded as lying in a full circle of other stones but many since appear to have been lost or removed,  though many remain Nevertheless it formed part of a large complex which some archaeologists think may  have been a structure to rival Stonehenge. 

The Lordship of Stanton Drew is first mentioned after the Norman Conquest when it was found in the hands of the Stanton family. First Roger, then William and then Hugh de Stanton were its lords and by the reign of Henry II (1154-1189) it was in the possession of Robert de Stanton who held it by service of two knights fees. His heir was Geoffrey de Stanton who held a number of estates in the area as well as this Lordship, including Timborough and Stowey. A Lord of the Manor from a following generation was  known as Drogo de Stanton and from this name came the derivation of Drew, for which the Lordship was subsequently known. By the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) the family had adopted the surname Drew, and in 1338 we find Walter Drew as Lord of the Manor.

 In the 14th century the Drew family were succeeded by the Clerke family and in the 1440’s Robert Clerke granted Stanton Drew to a local man, Richard Choke and this family held it until the early 16th century. The most noted member of this family was undoubtedly Sir Richard Choke who inherited the  Lordship from his father, John. Sir Richard was born in the parish and the family were so prosperous that he  could afford to seek a career in the law. He was a member of the Middle Temple in London and in 1453 was created king’s serjeant a position which he served until 1461. He then served as a justice of the Common Pleas until 1483 and during this period was knighted (in 1465). His activities in the law were widespread and lucrative and he often received royal commissions. For instance, he was granted a commission to raise  money for the defence of Calais during the reign of Henry VI. During the reign of Edward IV he acted as a justice of assize for seven counties and as a justice of the peace for Staffordshire and Worcestershire. In 1469 Choke was a par ty to a sentence of attainder against Sir Thomas Hungerford, who had been arrested for planning to assassinate King Edward in a Lancastrian plot. Evidently he served the Yorkist cause well since he retained influence into the 1480s and was summoned to the Parliament of 1482. When Lord of the Manor of Stanton Drew he entered into a protracted law suite against John Boteler over possession of it. The bass of Boteler’s claim on the manor is not known but it may have been contacted to a mortgage that Choke took  out on his proper ty. The suite ended, after a number of years, in 1452 when he achieved a final release from Boteler of any interest he may have held. Hostility between the two families was finally ended two years later by Boteler’s sister, Edith Sampbroke, who confirmed Choke as the legitimate Lord. 

Choke’s advice and administrative skills were sought after and he acted for a number eminent men  of his day, including William, Lord Botreaux, Sir John Fastolf (on whom Shakespeare’s Falstaff is based) and  Humphrey, duke of Buckingham. As well Stanton Drew he held the Manors of Long Ashton,Temple Cloud and Ranston in Dorset. He is thought to have kept a ‘great house’ at Long Ashton which was lavishly furnished and there is a monument and effigy to him at the parish church there. 

The grandson of Sir Richard, Sir John Choke, eventually sold the Lordship of Stanton Drew to Giles, Lord Daubney. Daubney had served both Edward IV and Richard III but finally rebelled against the latter and joined the forces of Henry Tudor in Brittany. When Tudor invaded England in 1485 Daubney accompanied him and fought at the battle of Boswor th at which Richard was defeated and Henry ascended to the throne as Henry VII. Daubney became one of Henry’s most trusted advisors and a powerful figure in the South-West of England. A year after Boswor th he was raised to the peerage as a baron. He served Henry in a number of capacities until finally becoming Lord Chamberlain in 1495. At his death in May 1508 he was rewarded with a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey an alabaster effigy of him still survives.

After Daubney’s death, Stanton Drew came into the hands of Sir John Cooper. His son and heir, Anthony-Ashley Cooper was a notable politician of the era who fought for Charles I and then Parliament  in the Civil War. He was raised to the Peerage as the first Earl of Shaftesbury in 1672. The Lordship of Stanton Drew later passed out of the Cooper family and into the possession of the Coates family before later descending to the Strachey family in the 19th century. The Strachey family held the Sutton Court Estate,  which Stanton Drew formed par t, until 1973 when, on the death of the 2d Baron Strachie it passed to his great nephew Lord O’Hagan, who held the manor until 2008. 

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Lot #13 of Manorial Services Auction - Winter 2024 - Stephen Johnson

The Lordship of Staunton, or Stanton, as it is sometimes known, lies in the parish of Loddiswell in the  beautiful district of Devon know as The South Hams. In ancient times it formed one of two villages in the parish but has declined over the centuries to become a hamlet. The manor however persisted, descending to  the famous Carew family who retained it until the 20th century.  

The very early history of the manor is uncertain but it is likely to be linked to the larger manor of  Loddiswell. At the time of Domesday this manor was held by Joel of Totnes. Little is known about this noble, other than that he obviously hailed from Totnes in Devon and that he founded an order of Clunaic monks in Barnstaple - St Mary Magdalene, which he made subor-dinate to the monastery at St Martin de Campis in  Paris and that he was Baron of Barnstaple. After Joel’s death the manor passed to his son Alured, who died in  1139. By the reign of Henry II (1154-1189) the manor had been returned to the Crown and was granted to William Bruis. In around 1194 William was succeeded by his second son who was also William. By this time  the family had become powerful in the West of England. William came to possess the Barony of Chepstow  and he inherited other vast Welsh estates through his mother, Bertha, who was the sister and daughter of  two Earls of Hereford. During the reign of Richard I (1189-1199) Braose acted as Sheriff of Herefordshire for the years 1192 to 1199 and was a Justice Itinerant for Staffordshire for the year 1196. By now he had  secured Barnstaple and Totnes for himself and he spent the next two years with Richard before returning  to Wales in 1198 to fight the Welsh ar-my. He was besieged by them at Maud’s Castle (otherwise known as Pain’s Castle), in Radnorshire and some sources record that he was defeated and only escaped by negotiating  his own release.

When John came to the throne in 1199, William was one of the most vocal nobles in urging that the  new king should be crowned at once. As a reward for his loyalty John granted him a charter allowing him to  keep any land he could wrest from the Welsh in Radnorshire and he was again made Sheriff of Herefordshire. Evidently his connection to John gained him huge wealth and influence and tellingly he was present with the King at the death of Prince Arthur at Falaise, in April 1203. 

The causes of his eventual fall from grace are obscure. The main authority on the subject is an ex-parte statement made by the king after William’s ruin and is entered in the ‘Red Book’ of the exchequer. From  this it appears that a quarrel arose between the king and Braose revolv-ing around money. Another source,  the Monk of Lanthony in Ireland, indicates that John ban-ished Braose because of his cruelty to the Welsh.  Certainly John’s subsequent treatment of William’s wife and son were considered one of the outrages of the  period since it was not seen as proper for women and children to suffer for their husband’s crime. Maud and  her son were imprisoned at Windsor Castle and, in effect, starved to death. Matthew of Westminster, writing  in 1240 writes of the episode 

‘the nobel lady Maud, wife of William de Braose, with William, their son  

and heir, were miserably famished at Windsore, by the command of King  

John, and William, her husband, escaping from Scorham, put himself  

into the habit of a beggar, and privately getting beyond sea, died soon 

after at Paris, where he had burial in the abbey of St Victor”. 

It is under the ownership of Buis’ granddaughter, Eve de Canitilupe, that Staunton is first mentioned. She had inherited the manor by 1262 by which time she was a widow. She gave 100 shillings worth of land  in Loddiswell to the Church of St Mary Studley in Warwickshire, for the soul of her husband. It appears that  the manor of Staunton, which included Staunton Moor, was gifted to the Canons of St Mary, Studley. The  Priory remained as lords of the manor of Staunton until it was dissolved in 1536. It was then in the hands of  the Crown until 1557 when it was granted to Katherine Champernowne. It is described as including; 

Staunton Moor and all other places belonging to the same, with a messuage, a furlong and a parcel of  moor in the tenure of John Scoos the Younger and a yearly rent of 14 shillings . . . .  

The manor was surveyed as part of the Loddiswell Estate in 1602 by which time the manor had  passed to the Arundells of Lanherne. Among the freeholders was Helen Carswell, widow, who 

holdeth certain lands in free socage and payeth top the Lord 1s and two suits of court. 

John Cawker held by; 

copy, a tenement and one furlong of land there by rent of 18s 6d and Simon Dery had a tene-ment at  Staunton containign one furlong by rent of 26s and pasture for one beast on Stonland.  

Stonland was likely another name for Staunton, both of which mean farm in a stony place. 

By the end of the 17th century the manor had passed to the Carew family, one of the major  landholders in South Devon.They made a survey of the manor in 1676 which noted 8 renters. The Lord of the Manor at that time, Sir Henry Carew, died in 1695 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Henry. He died, childless and unmarried, in 1708, at which point Staunton passed down to his brother Sir Thomas. He served as Sheriff of Devon in 1731 and died in 1746. His immediate heir was his son, Sir John, who died in 1773 and e was succeeded by the 6th Baronet, Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas’ son and heir, Sir Henry, the 7th Baronet married Elizabeth Palk in 1806 and from her family gathered an host of manors in eastern Devon. The 8th Baronet, Sir Walter Palk Carew died in 1874 and was followed by his nephew, Sir Henry Palk Carew. He was succeeded in turn by his son, Sir Thomas, in 1934. He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and then Pembroke College, Oxford University, Oxford. He fought in the First World War, gaining the rank of Lieutenant in the service of the Indian Army. He lived until 1976 when he was succeeded by the present Baronet, Sir Rivers Carew, who still has a home in Devon. Sir Rivers enjoyed a career in journalism and was editor of the Dublin Magazine from 1964 to 1969 and was Lord of the Manor of Staunton until the 1990s. 

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Lot #13 of Manorial Services Auction - Winter 2024 - Stephen Johnson

The Lordship of Staunton, or Stanton, as it is sometimes known, lies in the parish of Loddiswell in the  beautiful district of Devon know as The South Hams. In ancient times it formed one of two villages in the parish but has declined over the centuries to become a hamlet. The manor however persisted, descending to  the famous Carew family who retained it until the 20th century.  

The very early history of the manor is uncertain but it is likely to be linked to the larger manor of  Loddiswell. At the time of Domesday this manor was held by Joel of Totnes. Little is known about this noble, other than that he obviously hailed from Totnes in Devon and that he founded an order of Clunaic monks in Barnstaple - St Mary Magdalene, which he made subor-dinate to the monastery at St Martin de Campis in  Paris and that he was Baron of Barnstaple. After Joel’s death the manor passed to his son Alured, who died in  1139. By the reign of Henry II (1154-1189) the manor had been returned to the Crown and was granted to William Bruis. In around 1194 William was succeeded by his second son who was also William. By this time  the family had become powerful in the West of England. William came to possess the Barony of Chepstow  and he inherited other vast Welsh estates through his mother, Bertha, who was the sister and daughter of  two Earls of Hereford. During the reign of Richard I (1189-1199) Braose acted as Sheriff of Herefordshire for the years 1192 to 1199 and was a Justice Itinerant for Staffordshire for the year 1196. By now he had  secured Barnstaple and Totnes for himself and he spent the next two years with Richard before returning  to Wales in 1198 to fight the Welsh ar-my. He was besieged by them at Maud’s Castle (otherwise known as Pain’s Castle), in Radnorshire and some sources record that he was defeated and only escaped by negotiating  his own release.

When John came to the throne in 1199, William was one of the most vocal nobles in urging that the  new king should be crowned at once. As a reward for his loyalty John granted him a charter allowing him to  keep any land he could wrest from the Welsh in Radnorshire and he was again made Sheriff of Herefordshire. Evidently his connection to John gained him huge wealth and influence and tellingly he was present with the King at the death of Prince Arthur at Falaise, in April 1203. 

The causes of his eventual fall from grace are obscure. The main authority on the subject is an ex-parte statement made by the king after William’s ruin and is entered in the ‘Red Book’ of the exchequer. From  this it appears that a quarrel arose between the king and Braose revolv-ing around money. Another source,  the Monk of Lanthony in Ireland, indicates that John ban-ished Braose because of his cruelty to the Welsh.  Certainly John’s subsequent treatment of William’s wife and son were considered one of the outrages of the  period since it was not seen as proper for women and children to suffer for their husband’s crime. Maud and  her son were imprisoned at Windsor Castle and, in effect, starved to death. Matthew of Westminster, writing  in 1240 writes of the episode 

‘the nobel lady Maud, wife of William de Braose, with William, their son  

and heir, were miserably famished at Windsore, by the command of King  

John, and William, her husband, escaping from Scorham, put himself  

into the habit of a beggar, and privately getting beyond sea, died soon 

after at Paris, where he had burial in the abbey of St Victor”. 

It is under the ownership of Buis’ granddaughter, Eve de Canitilupe, that Staunton is first mentioned. She had inherited the manor by 1262 by which time she was a widow. She gave 100 shillings worth of land  in Loddiswell to the Church of St Mary Studley in Warwickshire, for the soul of her husband. It appears that  the manor of Staunton, which included Staunton Moor, was gifted to the Canons of St Mary, Studley. The  Priory remained as lords of the manor of Staunton until it was dissolved in 1536. It was then in the hands of  the Crown until 1557 when it was granted to Katherine Champernowne. It is described as including; 

Staunton Moor and all other places belonging to the same, with a messuage, a furlong and a parcel of  moor in the tenure of John Scoos the Younger and a yearly rent of 14 shillings . . . .  

The manor was surveyed as part of the Loddiswell Estate in 1602 by which time the manor had  passed to the Arundells of Lanherne. Among the freeholders was Helen Carswell, widow, who 

holdeth certain lands in free socage and payeth top the Lord 1s and two suits of court. 

John Cawker held by; 

copy, a tenement and one furlong of land there by rent of 18s 6d and Simon Dery had a tene-ment at  Staunton containign one furlong by rent of 26s and pasture for one beast on Stonland.  

Stonland was likely another name for Staunton, both of which mean farm in a stony place. 

By the end of the 17th century the manor had passed to the Carew family, one of the major  landholders in South Devon.They made a survey of the manor in 1676 which noted 8 renters. The Lord of the Manor at that time, Sir Henry Carew, died in 1695 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Henry. He died, childless and unmarried, in 1708, at which point Staunton passed down to his brother Sir Thomas. He served as Sheriff of Devon in 1731 and died in 1746. His immediate heir was his son, Sir John, who died in 1773 and e was succeeded by the 6th Baronet, Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas’ son and heir, Sir Henry, the 7th Baronet married Elizabeth Palk in 1806 and from her family gathered an host of manors in eastern Devon. The 8th Baronet, Sir Walter Palk Carew died in 1874 and was followed by his nephew, Sir Henry Palk Carew. He was succeeded in turn by his son, Sir Thomas, in 1934. He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and then Pembroke College, Oxford University, Oxford. He fought in the First World War, gaining the rank of Lieutenant in the service of the Indian Army. He lived until 1976 when he was succeeded by the present Baronet, Sir Rivers Carew, who still has a home in Devon. Sir Rivers enjoyed a career in journalism and was editor of the Dublin Magazine from 1964 to 1969 and was Lord of the Manor of Staunton until the 1990s. 

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Lot #43 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

A MILE NORTH of Skipton are the villages of Stirton and Thorlby which together form this Lordship. Both lie on the southern border of the North Yorkshire Moors. The area of the joint township is 3,076 acres and this includes the peek known as Sharp Haw (1171 ft). Both the river Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal run through the extent of the Lordship.

In Domesday Book Thorlby appears as 10 carucates of land belonging to Earl Edwin of Mercia and it formed part of his estate which became the Barony of Skipton. The Lordship has always been a part of the Barony and has descended in the same ownership. After Earl Edwin was killed in 1071 it was granted to Robert de Romille. It descended on the female of his descendants until it came to the Earls of Albermarle. After death of William de Fortibus, Earl of Albermarle in 1460 it passed to his daughter Avelyne and then to her husband, Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster and son of Henry III(1216-1272). After his death it was held by the Crown and eventually granted out to the Clifford family. They held it for nearly four hundred years before it passed, on the death of Anne Clifford, to the Tuftons, who were earls of Thanet. Lord Hothfield, who is the current representative of the Tufton family and is Lord of the Manor of Stirton with Thorlby and the Vendor.

Before it came to the Cliffords, Stirton was for a very short period held by Piers Gaveston. He was the favourite of Edward II (1307-1315) and early in that King’s reign was given a series of powerful positions which greatly angered the rest of the nobility. As part of Edward’s favouritism, Stirton was granted to Gaveston and his wife, Margaret. In the Grant, the Lordship of Stirton and Thorlby is described in some detail;

The rents of freeholders then extended to 7d and now a sparrehawke or 3s 4d

One toft and two oxgangs of land, tout 12 acres then 8s is now worth every acre 4s 52s. Demsne land 22 oxgangs then rated every oxgang at 12s per annum which was after divided into tenants and 5 dwellings, 8 oxgangs and a close given to the Free Chapel, and upon inquisition of Concelment upon the Statute of Chantries, those 5 messuages and 8 oxgangs of the land, and the close called Turne Ing were found for the the Kynge and the late erle purchased the same agayne; so 14 oxgangs remayning, being but of small content, valued at every one 30s commeth to £21. The tallage (the rate at whcih barons and knights were taxed towards the expenses of state) for 8 bondmen then extended to 30s, now yeildeth nil. the profits of the Halmote, with M’chett and Leyrwhett then 3s 4d now no profit; Grounds improved on the commons since the grant worth, 22s. Summa £29 12s.

Though this was not a particularly wealthy lordship Stirton and Thorlby brought in a reasonable amount. In the division of the Barony of Skipton, Stirton fell into the Ayredale bailiwick for which 18 annual courts were held.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing of the Clifford Lords of Stirton was Henry, tenth Baron of Skipton and first Baron of Vescy. He was seven years old when his father, John Clifford was killed, possibly at the Battle of Towton and for a time the family was deprived of their estates. To escape the retribution of the Yorkist Edward IV (1641-1483) the Lancastrian Clifford sought refuge in the wilds of the Barden forest, an area of demesne land not far from Stirton. He is said to have resided in a common keeper’s cottage and he lived a very simple life with a handful of servants. He spent 25 years in Barden, learning to the skills of a shepherd and coming to the sort of understanding of rural life that few noblemen could ever be bothered to. He was aided by the monks of Bolton Priory and is supposed to have studied astronomy with instruments they provided. It is suspected however that as well as this pursuit he was also involved in alchemy, judging by the great number of texts found to have been in his possession. Clifford spent the whole of the reign of Henry VII (1485-1409) and the first few years of the reign of his successor, Henry VIII (1509-1547) continuing with his studies, even after his estates, including Stirton had been restored to him in 1485. However, in 1513 he decided to entire politics and, at the age of 60, was appointed to command an army at the Battle of Flodden Moor, against the Scots. Incredibly, after a lifetime of peaceful study and contemplation Clifford was revealed as a superb soldier. He was appointed to command the centre and was surrounded by a large and impressive band of followers. These were later commemorated in verse; 

From Penigent to Pendle Hill

From Linton to Long Addingham

And all that Craven coasts did till,

They with the lusty Clifford Came;

All Staincliffe hundred went with him,

With striplings strong from Wharledale,

And all that Hauton hills did climb,

With Longstroth eke and Litton Dale

Whose milk-fed fellows, fleshy bred,

Well bron’d with sounding bows upbend;

All such as horton Fells had fed

On Clifford’s banner did attend.

The list of his followers included Ralph Earl of Cumberland, Thomas Lord Dacres, and members of the Neville, Strange, Latimer, Lumley, Scope and Darcy families: all noblemen. Henry died in 1523.

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Lot #11 of Manorial Services Auction - Winter 2025 - Stephen Johnson

 Just 14 miles from the centre of London, lies the Manor of St Johns, or St Johns in Lambourne, just  beyond the end of the Central line, on the edge of the Hainault Forest.

The manor, originally referred to as Lambourne and Abridge, was created in the 12th century through the  acquisition of land by the Knight Hospitallers and gifts from a number of local landowners, including Peter  de Valoines and William de Bois. The Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem was founded in 1099  after the First Crusade, and officially recognised by Pope Pascal II in 1113. The order was founded to support  the work of the hospital, which tended Christian travellers in the city. The order followed the principals of  the Augustinians, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. It soon developed into a military order, to  protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land and it received donations of land across Europe to pay for its  activities.  

The manor remained in the hands of the Hospitallers until the order was dissolved in 1538. For a time the  Lordship rested with the Crown before being granted to Richard Morgan and Thomas Carpenter. These  were likely land speculations since the estate was soon sold to Robert Taverner, who died in 1556. His son  and heir, Thomas, was still a minor at the time of his father’s death and he was made a royal ward. St Johns  was recorded as being valued at £23 15s and his mother was granted dower in it until her son reached the  age of 21. 

Thomas Taverner sold the manor in 1597-8 to Sir Robert Wroth. He was a wealthy forest official in Enfield  Chase and sat in nine Elizabethan Parliaments as a Member for Middlesex, and was a client of the Secretary  of State, Robert Cecil. He amassed a fortune in land purchases and sales at his death in 1604 left the Lordship  of St Johns to his eldest son, Robert. In 1608 the manor was assessed and found to include 4 messuages, 2  gardens, 100 acres of land, 20 acres of meadow, 100 acres of pasture, 80 acres of wood, and 8s. rent. In 1630  St Johns was sold by John Wroth to Richard Peacock who received the royal confirmation of all rights and  privileges connected with the manor but lived only four more years, dying in 1634, leaving the estate to his  son, Edward.  

In 1641 Edward sold, or leased, the Lordship to John Charles and in 1647 it was sold once more, to George  Bagstar. Bagstar subsequently sold St John’s Farm to William Browne of Abridge but the manor and its rights  was sold separately to Edward Palmer, squire of Dews Hall in the parish. 

Between 1668 and 1697 Henry Billingsley Palmer, son of Edward Palmer, took out a number of mortgages  on his estate. One of the mortgagees being Richard Lockwood. In 1709 Palmer sold the manor to Catlyn  Thorogood, an official of the South Sea Company. He was responsible for the renovation of St Mary and All  Saints Church in Lambourne, giving it the Georgian appearance that is still retains today. After his death in  1732, Thorogood’s son and heir, Pate, sold his estates, including the manor of St Johns, to Richard Lockwood,  described by the Essex historian Philip Morant as an eminent Turkey merchant, and the son of the above  mentioned Richard Lockwood. Lockwood made his fortune trading in the ‘Levant’ and was appointed a  Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Queen Anne. He was returned as a Member of Parliament for Hindon,  one of the so-called rotten boroughs, abolished in 1832. Lockwood fought, won and lost several elections  before becoming a Member for the City of London in 1722. He used the fortune he made in trading to  enlarge Dews Hall. His son and heir, Richard, held the Lordship of St Johns for forty years after the death of  his father. He died in 1794 and was succeeded by his brother, the Revd. Edward Lockwood.  

After Edward’s death in 1802 there was a separation of the Dews Hall estate between members of the  family but it was reunited under William J. Lockwood in 1842. The manor subsequently descended to Lt.-Gen.  William M. Wood, son of W. J. Lockwood who had assumed the surname of Wood in 1838 on inheriting the  property of an uncle. Lt.-Gen. Wood died in 1883 and was succeeded by his son Amelius R. M. Lockwood,  who had reassumed the original family name in 1876. Amelius was a former soldier who became a Member  of Parliament for Epping from 1892 to 1917. He was man who lent his talents and influence to a variety of  causes and organisations, including being Provincial Grand Master of the Essex Freemasons, Vice President of  the RSPCA, President of the Royal Horticultural Society and Chairman of the Governors of Chigwell School  from 1893 to 1922. He was also a director of the London and North-Western Railway and was appointed a  Privy Councillor in 1905. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Lambourne of Lambourne in 1917 but by  then his only heir, his nephew, Richard Lockwood, had been killed at the Battle of Aisne on September 1914.  After his death in 1928 the estates were sold, including the manor of St Johns, which had been reunited with  St Johns Farm in the 19th century. The manor of St Johns was sold in the 1970s and once again, to the family  of the present owner, in 1989. 

A Selection of Manorial Documents in in the Public Domain:

1349-1350: minister’s account, with other manors The National Archives 

1580-1730: steward’s papers Essex Record Office 

1691-1735: court rolls 

1713-1742: steward’s papers 

1713-1742: steward’s papers 

1718-1729: rentals  

1726-1747: steward’s papers  

1730-1735: court rolls 

1730-1735: presentments 

1730-1730: court roll 

1730-1730: rental 

1734-1734: rental 

1746-1746: presentments 

1746-1746: court roll 

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Lot #12 of Manorial Services Auction - July 2021 - Stephen Johnson

With a historic court leet

As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility and one of the features of the English  feudal system was that a Lord of the Manor could reap the rewards in wealth from his lands but he also had  a duty to uphold the law. Many manors were overseen and controlled by the court leet of the lords of the  manor. There was a jury made up of tenants, and local laws were enforced and fines levied against those who transgressed them. Court leets also appointed men to act as manorial officials; constable, ale-taster for instance. The court leet for the Manor of Stoborough, or Stowborough, was unusual in that the court chose  the mayor of the borough. This function was carried out until the 18th century for reasons explained below  but this is an interesting tradition which any new Lord of the manor could revive, albeit in a more ceremonial  way. The mayor was chosen by the Lord’s court leet every Michaelmas (29 September) and the tradition  continued until the beginning of the 18th century when the last mayor was chosen at the court of Mr Pitt,  whose family were lords of the manor until 1850 when they sold Stoborough to the Earl of Eldon. Even at  this date the court still chose a bailiff to serve the village. The practise only ceased because the tenants and  villagers of Stoborugh had become dissenters. In order to take part they were required to take the oath of  the Church of England and they all refused. 

Stoborugh is a village a mile or two south of Wareham and there is some historical thought that it  perhaps predates that town and was its original settlement although many doubt this since Wareham was  important in the 10th century. Much like Old Sarum and Salisbury, the relationship eventually became one  of main town and semi-suburb. The fact that Stoborough is named as a borough, gives some indication of its  antiquity. It is possible that it was established by Alfred as one of his Wessex boroughs. The fact that it also had  a serving mayor would lend some credence to it formally being a settlement of more consequence. It may  have been that Wareham superseded Stoborough before the Norman invasion.  

The descent of the Manor before the 15th century is rather obscure but it likely formed part of the  lands of the Wareham Priory and this in turn formed the eastern part of the vill. After the Dissolution of the  priory in 1538, the Stoborough was seized by the Crown and seems to have remained as one of its many  manors until 1591 when it was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Richard Swayne and Thomas Freake. Swayne  was born in Blandford Forum and sat as an MP for Weymouth and Melcombe. He was a trained lawyer and  the son of a merchant, one of the rising number of men in the Tudor period who could perhaps be viewed as  ‘middle-class’. In his practise as a Dorset lawyer he became involved in land speculation, with Thomas Freake  his cousin and partner. The latter was knighted at the Coronation of James I in 1603. Records indicate that  they purchased land worth £64 per year from the Crown in 1590, which must have included Stoborough.  Within a few years Swayne had either sold or gifted the Manor of Stoborough to his nephew, Sir William Pitt.  

Pitt was a notable man for the Wareham area. His father John served Elizabeth as her Clerk of the  Exchequer until his death in 1602. Pitt became comptroller of the household of James I and sat as MP for  Wareham from 1614. He acquired a number of estates as well as Stoborough, his main residence being  Stratfield Saye in Hampshire. His descendants include William Pitt, the Elder, and William Pitt the younger, both, of course, eminent Prime Ministers. Stoborough however did not descend to this cadet branch. On Sir  William’s death in 1636 the Manor passed to his eldest son Edward. He sat in Parliament for Poole in 1624  and was a teller in the Exchequer. His life is most notable for its end. During the early period of the Civil War  in 1643 he was seized by Parliamentary forces at Stratfield Saye and imprisoned at Windsor castle. Although he pleaded neutrality, his eldest son joined the Royalist army. Pitt was arrested and his mansion ransacked. His  son died a few months later as did both he and his wife. His estate was eventually passed to his younger son  who was an infant at the time of his father’s death. 

The manor remained in the hands of the Pitt family until sold in 1850 by George, Lord Rivers, to the  Trustees of the Earl of Eldon, John Scott. It remained in the hands of the Scott family until the beginning of  the present century.  

Stoborough was the site of a large barrow discovered as such in 1757. It was said to be 100 feet in  diameter. In the centre was found a large, hollowed oak and within this the remains of a number of people  and various items which suggest that it may have been a Danish burial mound.  

Documents associated with this manor in the public domain:

1663-1664: court papers Dorset History Centre 

1671-1671: court book, with other manors 

1702-1769: court book, with other manors 

1735-1856: court books (2) 

1750-1850: survey 

1757-1757: rent book, with other manors 

1762-1805: rentals 

1800-1800: survey, with other manors 

1800-1850: valuation (3 copies) 

1802-1802: list of jurors 

1804-1804: map 

1806-1827: rent book 

1810-1816: rental, with other manors 

1849-1850: valuation, with other manors 

1868-1868: map 

1869-1869: rental 

1869-1869: minutes 

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Lot #22 of 'Beaumont Collection' Auction - Nov 1954

The Manor of Stowmarket was granted by King Henry II to the Abbey of St. Osyth in Essex, which had its origin in a nunnery dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, erected by Osythe, daughter of King Frithwald but she was martyred by the Danes in "one of their bloody ravages" (Copinger, Vol. VI, p. 229). 

Upon the dissolution of the Monasteries, the Abbey and its lands were granted to Thomas Lord Cromwell and under King Edward to Lord Darcy. 

"After several hearings before Edward III, in 1348, it was solemnly determined that the Abbot should enjoy the sole privilege of holding the fair and market wit the Town itself which became the property of the Abbey. This was confirmed and enlarged by Hery IV in 1405 who granted the Manor of Stowhall in Stowmarket (or Abbots Hall) thence called from the residence of the chief of the monastery to the Abbey of St Osyth." And in their hands it continued until the Dissolution of these Establishments in 1538, when it became the  property of Thomas Darcy. The Manor passed in 1560 to John Howe, one of the wealthy clothiers of Stowmarket, and in 1610 to Richard Broke, who was High Sheriff in 1623.

The earliest record in the books being handed over is of a Court held by Robert Ganthill on the 5th October, 1647.  Here the Manor is called "Abbots Hall in Stowmarket" but only a few Courts later it becomes "Stowmarket otherwise Abbots Hall." It was possessed later by Thomas Blackerly, Kt., Samuel and Nathaniel Blackerly and Edward Lynch (1718), William Wollaston (1765), The Reverend Frederick Wollaston, Christopher Hildyard (1802), John Marriott (1820), The Reverend Richard Danie, and John Frederick Robinson (1860). Joseph Beaumont acquired the Lordship from the last mentioned and held his first Court on 12th January, 1881. 

The Custom of descent in this Manor was to the eldest son. At a General Court Baron held with the Court Leed and View of Frank Pledge on 30th May, 1786, the Inquest appointed Affeerors, Constables, Aletasters, Beadle and Pindar for the year ensuing. In 1820 it was presented by the Leet that the "Market Cross belonging to the Parish of Stowmarket has been some years and still continues to be shut up by Mr. James Hunt the proprietor of the Fairs and Markets from the Inhabitants of Stowmarket and the Public at large contrary to Ancient usage," and at the same Court "We also present that a nuisance originating in the yard of the Queens Head Inn...running between the Houses in the occupation of James Bethel and Thomas Stevenson, and through the Butter Market and Market Place and "desire that the same may be removed." 

On 13th March, 1832, the Inquisition of the Leet paid the customary one guinea fine to the Lady of the Manor and appointed Afferees, Constables, Aletasters and Examiners of Weights and Measures (one office) and Beadles. Presented by the Leet among other things at this Court was "a Public nuisance the Erection of Privies over the Common Sewer from the Market Place to the Vicarage Garden by various personas and desire that these several privies ma be removed."

The Manorial records (insured for £200, premium 10/0 per annum) to be handed over are: 

Court Books: 1647-91; 1692-1727; 1728-69;  1728-85; 1786-87; 1770-94; 1799-1825; 1826-1928

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Lot #13 of Manorial Services Auction - Spring 2024 - Stephen Johnson

Lying midway between Norwich and Ipswich, the village  of Stradbroke is an important centre of the local Suffolk area;  being home to a number of important local facilities. It takes its  name from the Saxon for a brook next to a Roman road though  the road is hard to discern today. It is an extremely attractive  place, centred on the parish church of St Peters. 

Stradbroke is first mentioned in Domesday Book, where it is recorded as a single manor under the overlordship of Robert  Male. During the early part of the 12th century, the manor was  enfeoffed, or granted, to the Rufus family by the Earl of Mortain, who later became King Stephen. Ernald Rufus is the first recorded Lord of Stradbroke which was counted as par t of the Honour of Eye. This grant was confirmed on Ernald in 1199 by King John. Two years later, when he would have been an old man, he gave a deed to the priory church of Woodbridge for the health of his  soul and that of his wife, Isabel. Rufus had founded the priory in 1193. 

Ernald was succeeded by his son Hugh, who in turn left Stradbroke to his eldest son, William le Rus,  who died seized of the manor in 1253. His only serving child was a daughter, Alice, who was married to Sir Richard de Brewse and so the manor passed to his family. The Brewse, or Broase family were a powerful  Anglo-Norman clan, though Richard was a relatively minor member. He honoured the lineage of his wife, by granting 10 marks per year to Woodbridge Priory and money for a canon to pray for their souls. This was a  common practice amongst the Anglo-Norman aristocracy who believed that their souls could be elevated by deeds of gift to the church. Richard is recorded as the Lord of Stradbroke at the time of the compilation of  the Hundred Rolls in 1280 and it is recorded in the Patent Rolls that in the same year a commission of Oyer and Terminer (an investigation) was issued to discover the persons who had destroyed the fences and gates  of his park at Stradbroke. Clearly Brewse had created a park in the manor and some locals, whether they be  landowners like him, or men of more modest backgrounds, had not taken kindly to this. Sadly, the names or  the perpetrators, or their motivations, are not recorded. Interestingly, Sir Richard sought and obtained a grant  of free warren for Stradbroke in 1309 so it could be that his park in the manor had not been legally created,  thus explaining the destruction.

In 1357 the manor passed, either by sale or through marriage, to Sir John Wingfield who was the chief administrator of Edward, the Black Prince. He fought in Normandy in the 1340s, being present at the  Battle of Crecy and at Poitiers, where he famously captured a French knight, D’Aubigny, the French king’s  bodyguard. Wingfield died of the plague in 1361 and the manor of Stradbroke passed to his widow, Eleanor. At her death in 1375 it descended to Wingfield’s daughter Katherine, who was married to Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk and Chancellor of England. He died in 1415 during the siege of Harfleur and the manor passed to his son, Michael, whose tenure was ended swiftly when he was killed at the Battle of Agincourt in  October 1415. He was succeeded by his brother William, who became the 4th Earl of Suffolk. On his death in 1450, after being exiled for treason by Henry VI, he was found to be seized of the manor of Stradbroke with Stubcroft. His son and heir, John 2nd Duke of Suffolk was a child at the time of his father’s death. When  he came of age in 1460 he came down on the side of the Yorkists, during the Wars of the Roses. He fought  at both the Battle of St Albans and the brutal battle of Towton in the following year and after the victory of  Edward IV he campaigned with the new king in Scotland. However, he was never considered to be amongst  the first rank of the aristocracy. After Edward’s death, John dallied in his support for Richard III and did not appear at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. After the victory of Henry Tudor he remained a semi-trusted member of court, even if his son, the Earl of Lincoln rebelled against the new king and was killed in 1487.At Suffolk’s death in 1492 the manor of Stradbroke passed to his younger son, Edmund. He left England of his  own accord in 1501 and declared himself the true Yorkist claimant to the throne. In 1506 he was sailing to  Spain but a storm blew his ship onto the shore of England and he was subsequently arrested and imprisoned  in the Tower of London. In 1513, after seven years as a prisoner he was summarily executed on the orders  of Henry VIII and all of his titles and estates were seized by the Crown. 

By the time of Suffolk’s death the manor of Stradbroke with Subcroft had been granted by the Crown  to Thomas Lord Howard but by the 1530s it had reverted to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk who had  seemingly been granted the manor by Henry VIII. Until 1610 the lordship remained as part of the Crown’s  estates. At this time it was granted to Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of James I but he died two years  later from typhoid fever. It was then granted to Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. It appears that  the manor remained as par t of the Crown’s estate until 1810. During this time is was leased out to various holders, including Sir William Morden Harbord. In 1810 the manor was sold to Charles, Marquis Cornwallis but in 1823 it was sold along with the whole of the Oakley Estate to Mattias Kerrison. He was known locally as the ‘Bungay Millionaire’ having made money through the development of the Staithe navigation. The manor  eventually passed as part of the estate to the Maskell family and their descendants in whom it remains. There  is a very large collection of manorial documents for Stradbroke with Stubcroft held by Suffolk Archives and  The National Archives. 

Documents in the Public Domain Associated with this Lordship:

1532-1543: court roll, The National Archives 

1553-1557: court roll 

1628-1635: court rolls (3) 

1428-1428: rental (1 vol), Suffolk Archives - Ipswich 

1501-1501: estreat 

1621-1621: survey 

1639-1639: court extract 

1650-1650: survey (18th cent copy) 

1650-1650: rental (18th cent copy) 

1651-1935: court books (15) 

1740-1803: rentals (4 vols) 

1793-1797: accounts of court profits 

1794-1794: schedule of tenants 

1794-1794: survey 

1797-1800: rental 

1800-1800: rental 

1822-1822: statement of the customs of the manor 

1823-1832: court fines 

1876-1886: rental 

1887-1898: minute book 

1887-1906: quit and free rent accounts,

1887-1887: schedules of court records 

1894-1899: collector’s quit and free rent accounts 

1900-1905: quit and free rentals, with other manors (3) 

1925-1925: rental, with other manors 

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Lot #44 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

IN A COUNTY of small parishes, Sturminster Marshall stands out as one of the largest, measuring some 3,851 acres. The village lies on the river Stour, four miles from Wimbourne Minster and takes its name from the the church lying on the river. Marshal is derived from the ancient family which held the Lordship. 

At the time of Domesday Book, the Lordship of Sturminster Marshal appeared as a large, single entity, in the hands of Roger de Belmont. The entry for it reads;

The same Roger hold Sturminster. Archbishop Stigand held it 

in King Edward’s time and it was taxed for 30 hides.

There is land for 25 ploughs.

Of this there are 12 hides and a 1/2 in demesne and therin

three ploughs and 8 servie and 64 villeins and 26 bordars

with 15 ploughs. Two mills pay 28s. and there are 124 acres

of meadow, pasture 3 leagues long and 1 1/2 league broad.

Wood, 1 league long and 1/2 league broad.

When received it was worth £66, now £55.

Belmont was the son of Turolf, from Audemer in Normandy, and was related to William the Conqueror by marriage. Through this same marriage he became Earl of Mellent and Sturminster was one of seven Lordships granted to him by William after the Norman invasion of 1066. He was succeeded by his son Robert and then in turn, by his son Waleran. At some point in the 12th century the Lordship appears to have been escheated or seized by the Crown, since in 1205 it was granted by King John (1199-1216) to William Marshal, who was hereditary marshal of England and the earl of Pembroke. Marshal was a confident of King John (1199-1216) and was considered at the time to be one of this troubled King’s most sensible advisors. During the baronial agitation which led up the signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, Marshal acted as the negotiator for the King but was trusted for his honesty by most of the barons. After John’s death and until his own in 1219 he was Protector of England, during the minority of Henry III (1216-1272). Marshal is buried in Westminster Abbey. During this period he was granted a fair at Sturminster for three days during the week of the Pentecost.  

William died in around 1231 and the earldom and his estates, including this Lordship, passed to his brother, Richard. He died just three years later, childless, so it passed to his next brother Gilbert. The same fate befell him and his brother Walter, and, in turn his brother Anselm. The latter died in 1246 and the family’s estate was divided among the remaining five sisters. Sturminster Marshal came to the fourth, Sybil, who was married to William Ferrers, earl of Derby. This Earl was unfortunate enough to be affected by gout throughout his life. In his English Chronicle, Matthew Paris writes of the Earl;

“This noble had, from his earliest years, laboured under an infirmity in his feet called the gout, as his father had before him, and from whom he inherited it as it were. He was usually carried from place to place in a litter or a carriage. One day, as he was proceeding on his journey, his servants, through careless driving, allowed his carriage to be upset on a bridge (at St Neots in Huntingdonshire), and although he escaped with his life at the time, he was never properly sound in body afterwards, and soon after went the way of all flesh."

His to Sybil marriage yielded no sons, but seven daughters, so on Ferrers’ death his vast estates were divided between them. Sturminster Marshal was divided into a number of moieties. The history of most of these descend into obscurity but the Lordship itself passed to the fifth daughter, Joan, who was married to John Mohun, a member of a cadet branch of this powerful and ancient baronial family. He died in 1279 and the Lordship remained with the Mohun’s until the reign of Henry IV (1399-1213) when, on the death of John de Mohun of Dunstar, it came to his widow, Joan. After this is came to the Strange family, of Knocking in Shropshire. They held it until 1481 when it passed to the heiress of John Strange, Joan. she married George, son and heir of Thomas Stanley, the earl of Derby. 

The earl of Derby held Sturminster Marshal until the reign of Elizabeth when it came to the Erle family, of Newton Peverall, in Dorset. This family first appears in 1251 with Henry de Erle, Lord of Newton in Somerset. He is later recorded to have removed his family to Cullhampton in Devon. During the reign of Edward II (1307-1327) the family are noted for being Lords of the Manor of Parva Somerton, or Somerton Erleigh, which they held by service of pouring water onto the hands of the King on Christmas Day. The family then become rather obscure for 150 years before the birth of John Erle at the end of the 15th century. He came from Ashburton in Devon and was succeeded by his son, John who married Thomazin, heiress of Thomas (?) Beare of Somerset. His son was Walter Erle who moved his seat to Charborough in Dorset in the mid 16th century. He died in 1581 and was found to be seised of a number of Lordships in Dorset. He was succeeded in his estates by his son Thomas who died in 1597 and who appears to have been the first Erle Lord of the Manor of Sturminster Marshal, he was certainly be found to be holding it at the time of his death.

Thomas left his estates to his eldest son, Walter. He was knighted in 1616 and during the Civil War was very active for the Parliamentary forces in Dorset. In 1642 he raised a troop of 60 soldiers and was made a lieutenant of the ordnance in 1643. In 1645 he personally intercepted letters bound for royalist forces at Dartmouth. These were in a code which he managed to decipher and he was thanked by Parliament. A year later he was made a commissioner to the King for peace and in this role conducted Charles to Holmeby House. At the outbreak of war again in 1648, Sir Walter commanded the garrison which took Corfe Castle. At his death the Erle estates passed to his second son, Thomas Erle, who was serving in the army in Ireland.

Thomas fought under William III in that island during the campaign against the deposed James II in 1689 . He then served in Flanders, notably at the Battle of Almanza, being made lieutenant-general and governor of Portsmouth in 1714, for his endeavours there. His standing was such that he was made a member of the Privy Council by Queen Anne (1702-1714) and served in this capacity under George I (1714-1727). 

General Erle died in 1720 and Sturminster descended to his daughter, Frances. She was married to Sir Edward Ernle of Maddington, Wiltshire, who was a Member of Parliament for nearby Wareham. He could trace his lineage back to Michael Ernle, who lived at Bourton in Wiltshire during the reign of Henry III (1216-1272). Sir Walter Ernle had been created a baronet in 1660, on the Restoration of Charles II (1660-1685) and Sir Edward succeed to his father’s estate and title in 1682. Like his father-in-law, Sir Edward was a member of the Privy Council. 

Frances and her husband had only one child, Elizabeth, who married Henry Drax of Ellerton in Yorkshire. This family seem to have been been established in the North for some considerable time but during the Civil War had fought on the Royalist side. After their defeat and the execution of the king, Colonel Drax, unable to live under the Commonwealth, cashed in his estates and went to live in Barbados. He established a sugar works there which created a huge income of £9,000 per year. He was married a daughter of the Earl of Carlisle, though which one remains obscure. At his death Drax’s fortune and his West Indian estates passed to his son Henry. He lived until 1755, almost 30 years after the death of his wife. Sturminster Marshal was then in the possession of his son Thomas Erle Drax, who died in 1790 and was succeeded by his brother, Edward Drax. He survived to enjoy his estates for just one year and the Lordship then passed to his sister, Frances-Elizabeth, who had married firstly to Augustus Earl Berkeley and then Robert, Viscount Clare. On her death, just a year later, the whole estate descended to Edward’s daughter, Sarah Francis. she was married to Richard Grosvenor, who was M.P. for West Looe in Cornwall and the nephew of Earl Grosvenor. On his marriage, Richard changed his surname to Erle-Drax-Grosvenor. Once more no son was forthcoming so Sturminster Marshal again descended to an heiress, Jane Frances Erle-Ernle-Drax, who was born in 1788. In 1827 she married John Sawbridge, M.P. for Wareham and High Sheriff of Dorset in 1840. Like his father-in-law, Sawbridge added Erle-Drax to his surname and again this marriage produced an heiress, Sarah, who married Colonel Francis Plunkett Burton, son of Admiral Ryder Burton, in 1853. Sturminster Marshal then passed to their daughter, Elizabeth Erle-Ernle-Drax, who became Baroness Dunsany. 

The Baroness died in 1916 and the whole of the family estates passed to her son the Hon, Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. It has remained with this family until the present day.

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Lot #2 of Manorial Services Auction - July 2021 - Stephen Johnson

During the 1530s this Lordship of the  Manor of Swanborough was desired by Thomas  Cromwell so much that he pressured the then  Lord, the Abbot of Lewis, into leasing it to him. The  Abbot resisted but since Cromwell was in charge  of the Dissolution of religious houses he ultimately  got his way in the end and obtained the Manor in  1537. There is no room here to chart the career of  Cromwell, one of the most famous figures of the Tudor period but his life as politician under Henry  VIII is brilliantly drawn by Hilary Mantel in her Wolf  Hall trilogy of novels.  

This Manor is found in the parish of Iford and  although it is not mentioned directly in Domesday  Book there is record of two plough-lands of being  granted to Cluny Priory the mother house of the  Priory of St Pancras. It was later described as being  five and half of hides but was then confirmed to the Priory of Lewes. The Abbots of Lewis were  the Lords of Swanborough for 450 years. Although  it lies with the parish of Iford, Swanborough (also known as Swanbergh) gave its name to the hundred. It is a village two miles south of South Malling and  several miles west of Brighton on the edge of beautiful downland. Swanborough Manor house still stands.  Central parts of the house, forming the old hall, date back to the period when it was owned by Lewes Priory  and were built around 1200. Additions were made in the 15th and 16th centuries.  

Lewes Priory was one of the earliest houses to receive the attention of Cromwell. As early as 1535  Richard Layton sent a report noting that at Lewes he found corruption of both sorts, and what is worse, treason,  for the subprior hath confessed to me treason in his preaching. I have caused him to subscribe his name to it and  to submit himself to the king’s mercy. I made him confess that the prior knew of it, and I have declared the prior  to be perjured. That done, I laid unto him concealment of treason, called him heinous traitor in the worst names  I could devise, he all the time kneeling and making intercession unto me not to utter to you the premises for his  undoing; whose words I smally regarded, and commanded him to appear before you at the court on All Hallows  Day, wherever the king should happen to be, and bring with him his subprior. When I come to you I will declare this  tragedy to you at large, so that it shall be in your power to do with him what you list.

The Priory had much profitable land and Cromwell appears to have decided that he par ticularly liked the look of Swanborough. He wrote to the Prior, Robert Croham, asking if he would lease the Manor to him.  Croham resisted. However, after the Priory was dissolved in 1537, Henry immediately granted Swanborough  to his trusted man, probably at Cromwell’s own urging. It appears that Cromwell had a purpose in mind for  Swanborough as he sent his man, William Cholmeley to investigate it in the Spring of 1538. The plague was  raging in London at the time and Cromwell had an eye on using the manor house as a safe haven for his son.  On 24 May Cholmeley wrote to his boss from Lewes,

I sent for the honest men of the parish of St. Anne at the town’s end of Lewes, adjoining the parish which  has been infected with the great plague, and declared to them your Lordship’s pleasure as to the burial within their  churchyard of those who die of the plague. After consulting together half a day and a night, they replied that their  parish was free of infection, which they feared would be conveyed with the dead bodies, but Mr. Jeny persuaded them to comply, so that henceforth none shall be buried in the church or churchyard within the precinct of your  house here at Lewes. The other parish infected has granted the same. As to the removal of Master Gregory and my  Lady his wife from Lewes, your Lordship has two houses, one called the Motte, four miles off, a pretty house within  your park there, of which a description is given in a bill which the bearer carries, and victuals may be conveyed from  your house at Lewes. Your bakehouse, brewhouse, slaughterhouse, and pullitrie may be continued. Mr. Gregory rode  thither today to view it, and likes the house right well. The other house, called Swanborough, is a mile from Lewes but  is thought too little for Mr. Gregory’s company. None have died for eight days, and none are sick of the plague now  within the town. I send you a bill of the number of persons to attend on Mr. Gregory on his removal, and of those  appointed to be on board wages. 

The Manor was Cromwell’s for a mere two years. He fell from power in 1540 and although Henry  had some doubt about his supposed crimes this did not save him from the axe. A year later Manor, together  with 40 cartloads of wood to be gathered each year from Homewood, nearby, was granted to William,  Earl of Arundel. In 1555 it returned to the Crown and was granted to Thomas Caryll who was Lord of  Swanborough at the time of his death in 1566. It passed to his grandson John and in 1584 he sold the Manor  to Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst. Swanborugh descended with the Sackville family until the 1980s when  it was sold by the 10th Earl De La Warr..The De La Warr name is now most famously associated with the  art deco pavilion in Bexhill and this was named in honour of the 10th Earl’s father, Hebrand Sackville, the  9th Earl. This member of the celebrated family was unusual in that although he went into politics, as many  aristocrats did before the war, he was actually the first hereditary peer to join the Labour Par ty, becoming a Government minister under Ramsey Macdonald at the age of just 23 in 1924. He inherited the Earldon  and estates, including Swanborough, in 1915 after the death of his father during the First World War. When  Macdonald broke with the Labour Party and formed the National Government in 1931 De La Warr followed  and served in the Ministry of Agriculture. From 1932 to 1934 he served as Mayor of Bexhill-on-Sea and  when the famous pavilion was completed in 1935 it was therefore named in his honour. In 1937 he became  Lord Privy Seal under Chamberlain but opposed the policies of Appeasement adopted by the Prime Minister.  When Churchill came to power in 1940, De La Warr was dropped from Government office but returned as Postmaster General in 1951. The Earl died in 1972 and Swanborugh passed to his son. William, the last  member of the family to hold the title. 

Documents associated with this manor in the public domain:

1539-1540: bailiff’s account British Library 

1578-1583: court book West Sussex Record Office 

1613-1613: estreats Kent History and Library Centre 

1703-1703: estreats, with other manors 

1703-1788: extracts from court roll 1703-1788 

1717-1720: estreats, with other manors 

1720-1730: minutes 

1732-1732: schedule of court books 

1618-1619: rental of demesne leases East Sussex and Brighton and Hove  Record Office (ESBHRO) 

1638-1642: court book 

1640-1658: rental, with other manors 

1645-1662: court book, with other manors 

1654-1688: court book, with other manors 

1691-1716: court book, with other manors 

1720-1795: court book, with other manors 

1734-1742: court book, with Ringmer; indexed 

1734-1795: index to court books, with Ringmer 

1759-1891: court book, with index 

1829: rental, with other manors 

1856-1861: account books, with other manors  

1837-1864: rental 

1840-1900: enfranchisement of copyhold land The National Archives 

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Lot #3 of Stanford & Son 'Fourth Auction' - Dec 1965

Copinger (vol. V, pp. 182 and 183) deals with this Manor in three short paragraphs, of which the following is a copy:- 

“Queen Elizabeth leased this manor to William Barrett. In 1609 the manor was vested in King James, and in 1640 in Thomas Cutler, who married 1st Anne, daughter of Thomas Dandy, of Combs, and 2ndly Ursula, daughter of Robert Gosnold, of Otlley, and on his death it passed to his son and heir, Benjamin Cutler, who held his first court 11th Aug. 1646, and died in 1679, when it went to his widow Alice, who held her first court in 1680. She remarried the Rev. Samuel Gollie, who died in 1683. Alice the widow died in 1693, when we find the manor passed to George Monson and Anne his wife, who in 1711 (?) held their first court. 

Before 1725 the manor was acquired by Walter Plumer, who 18th Sept. this year held his first Court, and from this time to the death of Jane Plumer, who remarried Robert Ward, the manor passed in the same course as the Manor of Metfield, in Hoxne Hundred. Robert Ward sold the manor to James Cudden, of Higham, who held in 1834. 

In 1842 John Moseley held the manor, but from June, 1896, to the present time it has been held by R. Brettell and H. E. Paine, of Chertsey, Surrey.” 

Despite a good deal of research work the vendors of this lot have not been able to trace any records as having been deposited in the British Museum, Public Record Office, Public Libraries or County Record Offices nor have they been able to trace what records (if any) were handed to the purchasers on completion of the Conveyance dated 21st December, 1871 from Sir Charles Robert Rowley to Henry Edwards Paine and Richard Brettell. (Copinger was inaccurate in giving 1896 as the date when the transfer was effected.) The original Conveyance of 21st December 1871 is in the vendors’ possession and as it relates not only to this Manor, but also to the Manor of Great Glenham (Lot 2), it will under the provisions of the National Conditions of Sale (17th Edition) pass to the purchaser of whichever of Lots 2 and 3 fetch the highest price. 

The vendors are Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Beaumont, who will convey as Trustees for Sale. The title will commence with the said Conveyance of 21st December 1871 and Mr. Beaumont will act as solicitor in respect of this Lot. 

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Lot #45 of Manorial Services Auction - 2004 UNPUBLISHED/ABORTED - Stephen Johnson

THE LORDSHIP of the Manor of Swell lies nine miles east of Taunton and four miles from Langport. Before the 19th century it formed a parish in its own right but in 1885 was amalgamated into that of Fivehead. This is a very rural area with most of the land being taken up with arable farming.

At the time of Domesday Book in 1086 the Lordship of Swell was held by the Count Mortain, the half brother of William the Conqueror, and the entry for it reads;

Bretel holdeth of the earl, Sewelle.

Alwald held it in the time of king Edward and was rated 3 hides.

The arable is four carucates. In demesne is one carucate,

with one servant and six villanes and twelve cottagers, with two ploughs.

There are thirty-three acres of meadow. 

A wood five furlongs and ten perches long and two furlongs broad.

IT is worth sixty shillings.

Mortain was one of the great Norman nobles and landowners. In early 1066, he had been present at the council at Lillebonne, which had planned the Norman Conquest. He personally contributed 120 ships to the invasion fleet according the the chronicler Wace, but severe doubt has been cast on this by later historians. After the conquest he was left to defend Lindsey, Lincolnshire, against the Danes in 1069. He was present at William's death bed, pleading the case for Odo, later joining the Bishop in armed support of Robert Curthose against the Conquerors younger son William Rufus, the new king of England. In June 1088 he yielded to William. Mortain was said to have received the largest English possessions of any of the Conqueror's followers, estimated at more 790 Manors, many of them, like Swell in Southern Britain. 

Soon after this period the Lordship passed to the Revel family who held it until the 13th century when it became the property of Sabine Revel. She was the last of the family and brought Swell to her husband, Sir Henry del Orty, in 1222. He was described as knight of Normandy and had been in the service of King John since 1209. It is very likely that he settled in England after the king lost Normandy in 1204. Orty served as constable of Bedford in 1216 and continued his service into the reign of Henry III (1216-1272). In 1230 he travelled to Gascony with Henry and spent much of the ensuing 20 years in the king’s service in the West Country. He died in 1253 and appears to have been succeeded in the Lordship of Swell by his fourth son, Walter for his eldest son, Sir Henry Orty, seems to have held it during the reign of Edward II (1307-1327). This Sir Henry was born in 1276 and was first recorded as being summoned into service against the Scots between 1316 and 1319. After this largely unsuccessful campaign had ended, Orty then went with the king to Ireland. As Edward’s reign began to crumble, Orty continued in loyal service, as a knight of Berkshire in Parliament ant then as a soldier in Guienne. In 1325 he was summoned to Parliament as a Baron by writ and was referred to after this time as Lord Orty. After Edward’s deposition at the hands of his wife Queen Isabella and her lover, Sir Roger Mortimer, Orty seems not to have been tainted as part of the previous regime. In 1335 he was a commissioner for raising an army in Somerset and was paid 250 marks for his services against the Scots. 

Lord Orty died in around 1350 and was succeeded by his son Sir John, Lord Orty. He is recorded as being Lord of the Manor of Swell from at least 1378, though he must have held it for a time before this. However, he was the last of this branch of the Ortys and died in 1411. Swell them seems to have descended to his wife, Maud, the daughter of William Newton since Sir John had no children. The ownership of Swell from this point is rather vague. It is possible that it passed to the Newton family, alternatively it may have descended to Maud’s sister, Alice, who was married to Walter Buckham. Whatever the route it is known that Swell eventually came to the Warre family. 

This family had originated in the 14th century at Hestercombe in Somerset, with Robert LaWarre. His son was Matthew, who was serjeant-at-law. By the beginning of the 16th century the family estates were in the hands of Sir Richard Warre. He was succeeded by his son Thomas. His grandson was Roger Warre who passed Swell to his son, Thomas, Recorder of Brigdwater. His son, also Thomas, lived at Swell Court during the Civil War as did his son and grandson, both Thomas’. The latter died in 1737 and was succeeded by his daughter Jane. She was married to Sir Robert Grosvenor and Swell therefore came into this family. On his death the Lordship came to his eldest son, Sir Richard Grosvenor who was the seventh Baronet. Educated at Oriel College, Oxford, he inherited his family’s estates in 1755, having been elected as MP for Chester in the previous year. In 1759 he was mayor of that city and two years later officiated as the cupbearer at the coronation of George III (1760-1820), as his uncle had done before him at the coronation of George II (1727-1760). On the recommendation of William Pitt the Elder, Grosvenor was raised to the peerage, as Baron Grosvenor in 1761. His marriage was Henrietta Vernon was privately and publically acknowledged as being very unhappy. Henrietta was described as being ‘a young woman of quality, whom a good person, moderate beauty, no understanding, and excessive vanity had rendered too accessible’, in this case she was too accessible to the charms of the king’s brother, Henry Duke of Cumberland. Grosvenor brought a case of ‘criminal conversation’ against the Duke. At the resulting trial Cumberland was forced to pay £10,000 in damages, an enormous sum. In 1772 Grosvenor settled £1,200 a year on his wife for arbitration. In 1784 he was then further raised in the peerage to Earl Grosvenor and died in 1802. He was succeeded by his third son who was later made Marquis of Westminster. At some point in the 19th century the Lordship of Swell was sold to the Ernle family who became the Plunkett-Erle-Ernle-Drax’s. The family have continued to hold Swell to the present day.

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Lot #7 of Stanford & Son's 'Second Auction' - Dec 1955

Tattershall is a small market town in the Southern half of the Wapentake of Cartree and in the Lindsey  Division of the County. It stands on the bank of the River Bane where it joins the River Witham. There is a castle here in which the Lord of the Manor used to live It remains stand 150 yards South West of the town and it was mainly erected by Lord Treasurer Cromwell in 1440. It now belongs to the National Trust having been given to the Nation by the late Lord Curzon of Kedleston.

Shortly after the Conquest the Manor was granted, together with several other estates in Norfolk and other counties, to Eudo and Pinco, two of the noblemen who had accompanied him to England. They were not related and on the division of the estates between them Eudo fixed his residence here. 

On his death his son Hugh Fitz-Eudo succeeded and he was followed by his son Robert and grandson Philip. The latter became Sheriff of Berkshire in 1173 and in the three years following was also Sheriff of Lincolnshire. He was succeeded by his son Robert and in 1201 the latter procured from King John, by means of a present made to this monarch of a well-trained Goshawk, a grant to hold a weekly market on Thursday of each week in this Manor. Another Robert, the third of this name, followed and in about 1230 he obtained a license from  Henry III to build a castle with a grant of free warren on all his demesne lands. 

The Eudo line was continued in regular descent by four other Roberts the last mentioned dying before coming of age. The line then became extinct and the inheritance was divided between his sisters. One of these, Joan, obtained Tattershall and she married Sir Robert Driby, who had a daughter and heiress Alice, who eventually married Sir William Bernack. John Bernack, the son of this marriage, was succeeded by William Bernack, who died a minor. His sister Maud then succeeded, and married Sir Ralph, afterwards Lord Cromwell, and in her right he became Lord of the Manor. On his death in 1398 he was succeeded by his son Ralph, who died in 1416. Further Ralphs succeeded and the last of them was in 1443 appointed by Henry VI to be Treasurer of the Exchequer. He died in 1455 without leaving an heir. In 1487 Henry VII granted the Manor to his mother Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and in 1488 it was entailed on the Duke of Richmond. The Duke died without leaving an heir and in 1520 Henry VIII granted it to Charles, Duke of Suffolk, by letters patent , and these were confirmed by Edward VI in 1547.

The two infant sons of the Duke of Suffolk only survived their father a short time and once again the Manor passed into the King's possession, he being one of the heirs general of the family.

In 1551 Edward VI granted the castle, with the Manor, in fee to Edward Lord Clinton and Saye who afterwards became Earl of Lincoln. The Earl died in 1584 and was succeeded by hi son Henry, who died in 1616 leaving a son Thomas who died in 1618. His son Theophilus succeeded and died in 1667. The Manor then passed to Edward, who was Theophilus' grandson, and he died in 1692. The Clinton male line then became extinct. After this the Estate became the property of Bridget Clinton, who  married Hugh Fortescue, by whom she had a son and heir named Hugh and in 1746 he was created Baron Fortescue and Earl Clinton.

The Manor remained in the Fortescue Family up to the time when it was sold to Mr. G. L. Tweedale from whom it has recnetly been pruchased by the present Vendor. 

The following are  a few extracts from the three vellum Court Book which will be handed over to the purchaser of this Lot. 

7th April, 1911: The appointment of Henry Tweed as Steward of the manor by George Leach Tweedale is enrolled

28th November, 1907: "To whit. At the View of Frankpledge with the Great Court Leet and Great Court Baron of the Rt.  Hon. Hugh Earl Fortescue held before Henry Tweed." 

The above heading to the Court is followed by the names of the Fee Jury for Richmond, Derham and Kirkby Bain of whom twelve were sworn in for Richmond and elven each for Derham and Kirkby Bain with an additional foreman in each case. There was little business at this Court but there was a presentment by the Richmond Jury of persons for not having cleaned their drains fand for committing other nuisances.

26th June, 1922: Here is enrolled a Compensation Agreement between G.L. Tweedale and the Rev. Samuel Stockton of Kirby-on-Bain. The Agreement ends with a grant by the Lord of the Manor to the Rev. Stockton of "All Commonage and rights of Common upon and over the respective wastes and commonable lands of  the said Manor as the said S. Stockton or any person through whom he claims had enjoyed in respect of the premises in-franchised." This grant was made in order to make it clear that despite the conversion of the copyhold property into freehold the common rights would still be exercisable by the person so owning the property in question from time to time.

Courts Leet were held yearly without interruption from 1886 to 1898 and again in 1901 1904, and 1907. The custom of descent in this manor was to the eldest son (see Vol. VII, page 90). 

Records to be handed over are three volumes of Court Books dated 1833-52; 1853-84; 1854-1935

Commencement of Title: See conditions of sale

Insurance of Records:  £200, premium 10/-

There is a Court Roll dated 1552 in the Public Records Office, and four Court Rolls (decayed) 1543-1550 are deposited with the Lincolnshire Archives Committee, Exchequer Gate, Lincoln,. Among the Lord of Lincoln's particulars at the John Ryland's Library are rentals of Tattershall with other Manors.

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Lot #7 of Stanford & Son's 'Third Auction' - Sept 1964 

Thorpe Morieux is a pleasant village a few miles north-east of Lavenham. Interesting details of the Manor are usually to be found in Copinger’s Manorial families, but in this case the village does not appear at all in that publication. 

Kelly’s Directory used to provide useful, though frequently inaccurate, information as to the Lords of Manors at the time of compilation of each issue, but no new edition has been published for Suffolk since 1929. In that Edition it was stated that the Church was a Rectory of the yearly value of £572 with 23 acres of Glebe in the gift of Lt.-Col. C. T. Warner, D.S.O., M.C., J.P., and held since 1920 by the Rev. Theodore John Parkes of Trinity College, Dublin. A Village Hall was built in 1929 and opened by the Hon. E. G. Strutt. The Rev. B. J. H. Berridge, M.A., was stated to be Lord of the Manor. 

The Court records in this Manor go back to 1626 and the first book “A” (bound in vellum) covers the period from that date until 1830. Although there is nothing in Copinger’s Manorial families dealing with Thorpe Morieux as a Manor, there is a reference to it in Blomefield’s History of Norfolk under an account of the Manor of Hunstanton. It is stated there that “Sir John Le Strange was son and heir of Hamon and married Alianore, daughter and co-heir of Sir Richard Walkfare, by the daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Morieux of Suffolk, who was made Constable of the Tower of London for life by Parliament in the fifth year of Richard II”. Sir John was “escheator for the Duchy of Lancaster in the sixth and seventh years of Henry IV, also chief justicia of the King’s Palace, and he sealed with two lions and a bendlet overall”. By an inquisition, taken in 1436, John Le Strange was found to be seized of the Manor of Thorpe Morieux. 

Taking Book “A” we find that John Risby was Lord in 1626. His Steward was Robert Malby. He was followed in 1653 by Dame Elizabeth Waldegrave guardian to John Risby the younger during his minority. At a Court Leet held on 22nd April, 1633, two constables were appointed, this being one of the functions of the Court Leet which could not be exercised by a Court Baron or Customary Court. It will be noticed that there were 13 men on the Jury and four more represented the Homage. At a Court held on 23rd May, 1637 there were as many as 37 men on the Homage and in 1638 a similar number. This illustrates the fact that such Court Leets were considered important, whereas at Courts Baron there were often only two or three on the Homage. 

The business transacted at Courts Baron and Customary Courts was of a different type, being confined as a rule to transactions affecting the copyhold properties in the Manor, such as admissions, surrenders, presentments for encroaching on the Lord’s commons and waste lands, and for cutting trees without licence from the Lord. 

The first book (1626) contains a fine example in the opening Court of 17th Century calligraphy, but it deteriorated in the second Court enrolled and gradually got worse until the book might be a Minutes Book instead of an important record. By 1751 it had improved again but the writing was by then much the same as that of a clerk in a Solicitors’ Office in the second half of the 19th Century. 

At a Court Baron and View of Frankpledge held on 21st October, 1659 George Wengeve was admitted as “youngest son and next heir according to the custom of the Manor”, this being one more of those Suffolk Manors in which the youngest son succeeded instead of the eldest. This custom was called Borough English. We get another instance at a Court held on 27th October, 1675 when Francis Copinger was admitted as youngest son and heir of Francis Copinger Senior. 

Just before the enrolment of a Court Baron held on 31st March for Elizabeth Risby (before her Steward James Harvey) there is an Index, and above it is a note “Customs of the Manor” “youngest son is heir”. Against this note appear the names William Bixby—Apr. 1639; Isaac Woodthorpe; Peter Hockridge—Apr. 1666; Peter White—July 1672; Francis Copinger—Oct. 1675. 

Other entries in the Court Books which are of interest are the following: 

14/9/1787: Robert Baker acknowledged that “he held freely of the Lords of this Manor one acre of land by the Yearly rent of 2d. late his father’s and he paid the said Lords a relief of 2d. for the same but his fealty is respited, etc.” 

6/11/1787: Fifth proclamation made for the heirs of Mary Abbott widow and seizure awarded because no claimant had appeared. 

25/3/1788: Fourth proclamation for the heirs of Alice Richardson and seizure awarded. 

Warrant of seizure awarded—Thomas Stearn, the Bailiff of the Manor directed to seize Mary Abbott’s lands and reports to the Court that he has done so. 

2/7/1793: Ambrose Ruffell admitted to lands called “Crimbles”, Louchfield. 

20/4/1802: Guardianship of George Wenyvee granted to Mary Wenyvee, his mother, “until he shall attain the age of 21 years she then rendering a just and true account, etc.” 

29/4/1806: Licence granted to Samuel Farnley of Felsham, Carpenter, to enclose a piece of waste land and consent of copyholders to the infringement of their privileges; signed by them and enrolled. 

5/4/1809: Andrew Woodgate presented for enclosing two rods of waste land, without licence. Benjamin Nice presented for same offence but six rods in length and four rods in breadth in his case. William Ruffell presented for digging up part of the waste called Thorpe Green. 

Amercement (see Glossary) of tenants for failure to attend Court 3d. each. At a Court held on 17th April, 1811 defaulters were amerced 6d. Why was the fine raised from 3d. to 6d.? 

The records to be handed over on completion are the three books referred to above; Minute Books 1809–1860, 1862–1876, 1885–1890; eight bundles of old rolls not calendared but the earliest appears to be Edward II; and a Rental Books 1834–60 (with gaps). 

The Vendors sell as trustees and the title will commence with a mortgage dated 5th April, 1907 between the Rev. Basil James Harold Sparrow-Berridge of Gosfield Place, of the first part and George Frederick Beaumont of Coggeshall, and others, of the second and third parts.
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Lot #4 of Manorial Services Auction - Nov 2022 - Stephen Johnson

This manor was created as a sub-infeudation of the manor of Stansted Mountfitchet on the founding  of Thremhall Priory in the mid 12th century by Gilbert de Mountfitchet. It is reported that before Gilbert  departed on a pilgrimage to he Holy Land he gave land at Thremhall to a Scotsman called Daniel and  arranged to have a monastery built there. The new manor was to provide it with land and an income. The  priory was Augustinian and was one of the smaller such houses in the South of England. In 1291 it was  valued at £17 2s and was found to receive rent from lands in Tendring, Manuden, Takeley, Farnham, Hatfield  Regis, Birchanger, Elsenham, Ongar and Hallingbury in Essex as well as Thorley, Stortford and Brent Pelham in  Hertfordshire. When the priory was dissolved in 1536 it was found to be worth just £60. The Priors were  Lord of the Manor of Thremhall for over 300 years and are named as:

Daniel  William, occurs 1202

Robert John, occurs 1241 and 1250 

John, occurs 1306 

William de Shereford, died 1368.  

John de Takeley, elected 1368 

Richard de Brangtre, resigned 1403 

John Rokby, died 1438 

Reginald Harneys, died 1465 

John Crowne, collated died 1474 

John Herbert, resigned 1489 

John Hasilton, occurs 1492.  

Simon Sponer, the last prior.  

Thremhall lies in the extensive parish of Stansted Mountfitchet, near to the borders of Hertfordshire  and a few miles east of Bishop’s Stortford. The area is now known internationally as the home of Stansted  Airport. Thremhall lies to the south of the airport, on the northern fringes of Hatfield Forest. There is nothing  left of the priory itself but a house was later built on the site after it was purchased with the manor by the  Houblon family in the 18th century. They built a residence on the site of the old priory and lived there for a  time, furnishing the house from their nearby estate at Great Hallinbury. 

After the dissolution of the priory, the manor and its lands were retained by the Crown until the  reign of Elizabeth I when it was granted to Sir John Cary and Joyce Walsingham. Cary was a well connected  relative of the Duke of Somerset and later married Joyce, who was a widow. They passed the lordship to  their son, Wymond, who sold it in 1566 to land speculators, William Glascock and John Pavyott. The Glasscok  family held Thremhall Priory for three generations before it was sold to Thomas Ray, son in law of George  Glassock. In 1692 George Ray was Lord of the Manor. His son, the Reverend Thomas Ray, died without a  male heir and therefore his estate passed to his daughter, who was married to a Dr Robinson. The descent  of the manor over the next 50 years is rather opaque but by the middle of the 18th century it had come  14 into the possession of the Houblon family of nearby Great Hallingbury. This family were of Huguenot descent,  having fled persecution in the Spanish Netherlands in 1560. They settled in London and became wealthy  cloth traders and financiers. Sir James Houblon was knighted in 1691 and was a close friend of Samuel  Pepys, being mentioned on numerous occasions in Pepys’ famous diaries, as were his family in general. On 5  February 1666 Pepys writes I did some little business and visited my Lord Sandwich, and so, it raining, went directly  to the Sun, behind the Exchange, about seven o’clock, where I find all the five brothers Houblons, and mighty fine  gentlemen they are all, and used me mighty respectfully. We were mighty civilly merry, and their discourses, having  been all abroad, very fine. Here late and at last accompanied home with Mr. J. Houblon and Hill, whom I invited  to sup with me on Friday, and so parted and I home to bed. It was Houblon’s grandson, Jacob, who purchased  Themhall Priory as an adjunct to his Great Hallingbury Estate, which had been acquired in 1729. 

Jacob Houblon was a classic member of the 18th century Landed Gentry. He sat in Parliament  for over thirty years for Colchester and then Hertford and represented the Tory faction after becoming a  ‘country squire. Indeed, when he married Mary Hyde Cotton in 1735 he became connected to the ‘Jacobite’  faction of which her father, Sir John Hyne Cotton, was a leading light. He later joined the Cocoa Tree Club,  the headquarters of the Jacobite Tory faction. After the failed rebellion led by Prince Charles Stuart in 1745  the Jacobite cause was dealt a near fatal blow and it perhaps not surprising that he did not stand at the next  election in 1747. He did return to Parliament in the 1760s as an independent.  

The Houblon family, later Archer-Houblon, remained as Lords of the Manor of Thremhall Priory until  the late 20th century when their representative, Mrs Puxley, sold it to a private buyer.  

Documents associated with this manor in the public domain:

1357-1860: court rolls (non-consecutive) Essex Record Office 

1372-1399: estreats (in court roll) 

1380-1380: list of suitors, with Pettits Fee (in estreat roll) non-consecutive 

1505-1505: rental 

1517-1531: estreat roll 

1542-1542: orders to bailiff (among other papers) 

1640-1640: rental (among steward’s papers, 1 bundle) 

1640-1868: steward’s papers (1 bundle) 

1642-1866: stewards’ papers  

1642-1642: statement of arrears of rent (among steward’s papers, 1 bundle) 

1646-1646: rental (among steward’s papers, 1 bundle) 

1665-1665: estreat roll 

1665-1665: presentment (among steward’s papers, 1 bundle) 

1680-1680: list of tenants at court (among steward’s papers, 1 bundle) 

1680-1692: presentments (among steward’s papers, 1 bundle) 

1751-1866: accounts of rents (with accounts of fines, reliefs, etc, 1 bundle) 

1775-1775: rental 

1775-1825: steward’s papers (1 bundle)9 

1775-1781: court roll 

1800-1800: rental 

1850-1895: court book (1 vol) 

1916-1918: accounts of rents received or due, with other manors (1 bundle) 

1925-1932: account of rents due, with other manors (with other records, 3 bundles) 

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Lot #12 of 'Beaumont Collection' Auction - Nov 1954

in the Parishes of Tollesbury, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Tiptree, etc. 

Tollesbury, which lies near the Blackwater Estuary, 5 miles East-North-East of Maldon, was so called, according to Morant, because it was the place where toll or custom was paid by ships coming up the Bay. The name of Tollesbury, according to the same authority, is not found in records from the time of the survey to the year 1329 but is supposed to be what is named Tolleshunt Guisnes, or Guysnes, from Baldwin , Earl of Guisnes. 

There were four Manors: 1) Tollesbury, with Bourchier's Hall as the Manor House; 2) Tollesbury Hall, originally belonging to the Nunnery of Berking or Barking, the Manor House being Tollebury Hall, close to and on the South of the Church; 3) Gorwell and Prentices, subordinate to Bourchier's Hall and until the dissolution of monasteries belonging to Beeleigh Abbey; and 4) Bohun's Hall, the Manor House being just South of Tollesbury Hall. 

The Nunnery of Barking held the Manor until the Dissolution. In 1539 Henry VIII granted it to Thomas, Lord Cromwell, a few days previous to creating him Earl of Essex. On his attainder, it returned to the Crown, and was appointed for the maintenance of Lady Mary, afterwards Queen. In 1562, this Manor was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who, imprudently entering into an agreement to marry the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, was on that account beheaded in 1573; but Thomas, his son, by hi s second lady, Margaret, daughter of Thomas Lord Audely, being restored in blood in 1584, this lordship was given to him by Queen Elizabeth in 1595 (Morant, Vol. I, p. 402).

Staying in the Howard family until sold in 1701 by Charles, eldest son and heir of William Lord  Howard of Escrick, to Peter Whetcomb, it passed to Henry Conelison of  Braxted Lodge, before being purchased with that estate and Tollesbury Wix by Peter Du Cane. It remained in that family until sold in 1888 and resold to George Frederick Beaumont. 

The following are a selection from many interesting entries in the Court Rolls: 

• 20th July, 1795 - Seizure of oyster laying late of Ann Kirby
• 26th March, 1799 - Composition for "two best beasts of which the said Edward Monk died possessed and were marked as heriots due from the said lands and tenements called Lavenhams and the said piece or parcels of land called Hungerdowns...ten Guineas in lieu of the said two best beasts which the said John Carrington hath in open Court paid." 
• 8th May, 1879 - Appointment of guardian to Augustus Frederick Monk ,two year old copyhold tenant. 
• 8th May 1879 - Isaac Rice, Bailiff of the manor, presents the seizure, in the presence of two copyhold tenants of the Manor, of an oyster laying called "Coat Laying." 
• 12th May, 1802 - Admission of Thomas Walker to a number of properties upon payment of fines of  £40 composition for heriots, viz: "four horses constituting his four best beasts." 
•  12th May, 1802 - Grant of parcel of the Lords waste at the bottom of Oxley Green to Peter Smith to be held "by free deed fealty suit of court and the yearly rent of one shilling upon every alienation or death of the tenant thereof and such other services and customs, etc."
• 2nd June, 1803 - James Keys, Peter Smith, Philip Smyth, Francis Richardson and others presented for encroachment on Uxley Green by digging and carrying away the soil and laying dunghills thereupon and destroying the herbage thereof to the prejudice of the Lord and Tenants of the Manor.  
• 2nd June, 1803 - Presentment of composition for felling of timber by Stanhope Pedley. Value  £9 13s. 6d.,  £3 4s. 6d. paid to the Lord "being his third part of the said timber." 
• 9th October, 1804 - Grant to James Claydon of Tollesbury, Dredger, of two oyster layings situate in South Fleet at Herse End. 

The Manorial Records (insured for  £250, premium 12/6 per annum) to be handed over are: 

Court Rolls: 1651-1709; 1710-24; 1765-75; 1778; 1789-95

Court Books: 1730-52; 1755-60; 1796-1892; 1894-1940

Minute Books: 1813-1907

Grant of the Manor (copy) to Thomas Lord Howard, 22nd September, 1595, with rought transaltion by G. F. Beaumont.    

Notice of Court: 21st June, 1883

Particulars of Sale, 11th July 1888 - Sexton & Greenwade's 

Agreement for Sale of site of  pier by G.F. Beaumont to Great Eastern Railway Company, 11th March, 1890

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Lot #18 of Stanford & Son's 'Second Auction' - Dec 1955

In the Loddon and Earsham Hundreds

Topcroft, in the Hundred of Loddon, and Denton, in the Hundred of Earsham, are recorded in the Domesday Survey as part of the lands of Eudo, son of Spiruwin. In Topcroft were two villeins, thirty-six bordars and four serfs; the value was 40/- and the Danegeld contribution 1/8d. Denton was held by Tarmont, a freeman of King Edward's with the villeins, with bordars, and three serfs, and by Alfriz with eight villeins, six bordars and three serfs, and four sokemen. The value of the two holdings was eight pounds, Danegeld 1/8d. 

Among Eudo's other lands granted by the Conqueror was the Manor of Tateshall (or Tattershall - see Lot 4) in Lincolnshire, and like many other adventurers in the Norman following, he lost no time in settling there and becoming known as Eudo de Tateshall. A barony being conferred on his heir, the de Tateshall estate came in time to a descendant, Sir Robert de Tateshall, Lord Tateshall, who increased his holding by marriage with Mabel, sister and co-heiress of Hugh de Albini, Earl of Arundel on his death in 1242. In right of his wife, Robert was thenceforward Lord of the castle of Buckenham and the Manor of Wymondham, with the office of Chief Butler to the King. In the 42nd year of the reign on Henry III he had a grant of free warren, and in 1286 he had free warren, with "assize of bread and beer, a gallows, weyf, etc." 

At the end of the reign of Edward III, the whole lordship of the town of Topcroft was in Sir Adam de Clifton, from whom it passed in 1447 to Robert Clifton, together with the Manor of Denton. In 1465 the united lordships of Topcroft and Denton were purchased by Sir Gilbert Debenham, and passed by inheritance from the family of Debenham to that of Brews (later Bruce); the Manor was in the hands of this family at the beginning of the surviving records of the Manor. The first book of the present record opens in 1626, under the ladyship of Dam Maria Gandy, who held the Manor for thirteen years before her heir, Sir John Brews, succeeded in 1629. His  heir, John Bruce, a minor , was Lord with Edmund Moundeford and John Wyngfield as trustees by 1623. In 1647 the Manor came into the hands of Robert Wilton and was vested in trustees of his Will (John Buxton, Robert Woode and Robert Drury) on his decease in 1658. By what means George Smith, Doctor of Medicine, became Lord of the Manor in 1689 is not recorded. Offley Smith succeeded din 1703, followed by William Smyth (1771), John Smyth (1787) and the Rev. William John Smyth (1807).

Lords in 1864 were John Isaac Hunter and William Martin Hazard; the latter's widow, Mary Elizabeth Ann Hazard, held it with Sterling Westhorpe after 1883, until the purchase by Henry Edwin Garrod, of Diss, five ear slater. At the sale of the Garrod Manors in 1915, it was purchased by George Frederick Beaumont.

The Court books cover the period form 1626 to 1930 with the exception of the years 1705-70, for which the records are missing. It was at some time during this period of defective records that General Courts were composed of a homage each from Topcroft and Denton, with a Leet Jury for Topcorft only. Tenants took turns to serve at the Sheriff's courts and to collect the Lord's rents, but the records show a tendency at time passed for these services to be compounded for a fine to the Lord. For example, in 1651, the Topcroft Jury found:

"...that the tenant of the tenement Knavelyngs sometime John Dymons ought to serve as the Shreves Turne in the yere next after the feast of St. Michaell tharkangell next coming according to custonms etc." and that "the tenement Stowes late John Garond...ought to beare the charge of the office of Reeve or Collector of the Lord's Rents for the yere next after the feast etc." 

Four years later, however, the alternative practice begins to be more frequent, e.g.: 

"...that Thomes Stone gent, for his tenent, called Sleppers late Willm. Shermans ought to give the Lord 10/0 for his discharge fo collecting the Lord's rents in the yere next..." etc.

Fines for wrongful commoning of cattle and "overcharging the common with cattele" were frequent and the inhabitants appear to have been zealous in preserving the highway from obstruction - order to lop overhanging  boughs and fines for failure to do so appear at almost ever court. Allowing baron or outbuildings to fall into disrepair, fouling ditches with effluent from pigstyes, commoning mangy horses, failing to maintain foot-bridges, rotting hem in common water, digging unauthorised pits, and tree-felling without permission are frequent offences. The Lords are frequently recorded as granting permission for felling of oaks, etc., by tenants for their own use, as witness the sale in 1651, when the Lord "did receive of John Tennyson Clarke the some of tenn pounds for thirtie & fower timber trees then standing upon the copiehold lands of the said John holden of this Manor." In 1655 Thomas Buxton paid three pounds ten for "six timber topp oaks, ten polling oakes, one other partable oake, and eight small ashes latelie growing upon his copiehold lands..." 

Fines on admission to holdings in the Manor were certain, an are noted in a later book (1823-33) as being fixed.

Copyhold lands known accounted and named to be demesnes or late Grants... 4/- per acre

Ancient grant of customary land... 2/- per acre

Messuage tenement or cottage...6/8

The custom of descent ws to the eldest son.

Records to be handed over are: 

Court Books: 1626-52; 1652-75; 1676-97; 1699-1705; 1771-95; 1795-1807; 1808-23; 1823-33; 1834-52; 1852-83; 1883-1930

Minute Books: 1808-19; 1864-1913

Rentals: 1752; 1762-68

Draft Court Books: 1697-1700

Miscellaneous: Six completed draft compensation agreements 1928-32 and four documents presented for enrolling. Plans and maps in connection with indentures of sale of land to the Waveney Valley Railway Company and Great Eastern Railway Company will be found on pp. 320-345 in book 1852-83, an on pp. 620-644 of book 1883-1930.

Insurance of Records £300 premium, 15/- p.a.

Commencement of Title: Deed dated 6th September, 1915

The title deeds which will be handed over to the purchaser go back to a conveyance dated 20th April, 1864, engrossed on eight sheets of parchment. This deed has a very long and detailed description of the rights and privileges included in the sale; of special note is the "right of swan mark and free fishing in the River Waveney."  

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Lot #3 of Manorial Services Auction - February 2022 - Stephen Johnson

(Among 2-3% of manors which are registered with HM's Land Registry - Title #: ND131224)

 This Lordship is found in the extensive parish of Morpeth in Northumberland. Together, Tranwell and  High Church they form a township out of the nine of which make up the whole. The parish church of St  Mary’s is situated in High Church, as the name suggests, which is around a half mile from the market place  in the centre of the town. Tranwell is contiguous with High Church and was formerly a small village around  two miles to the south of the main town. During the Second World War the RAF built an airfield at Tranwell  known as RAF Morpeth and although its use was discontinued soon after the War a number of the original  buildings survive. 

Anciently Tranwell was often recorded as Trenwell, possibly from the Icelandic trana meaning a crane  and the well at which it was found. Anciently the manor was a member of the larger manor of Morpeth, which  itself formed part of the Barony of Merlay, which was erected after the Norman invasion of 1066. The first  to hold this title was William de Merlay who was described as being a sergeant to the Bishop of Constance.  He died in around 1129 and his lands and titles descended to his son, Randolph. Like many of his Norman  brethren, Randolph established a religious house. In 1138 he established the abbey of Newminster west of  Tranwell but this was almost immediately destroyed by the marauding army of King David of Scotland and  had to be rebuilt. Today it survives as a ruin. The Merlay family held the Barony and their manor of Tranwell  for the next hundred years. The last of the line was Roger, who obtained livery of his lands in 1239. He was  considered to be an important local baron and was summoned, with his retinue, to appear before Henry III  at Newcastle in 1244 in order to assist in the repair of the city walls. In 1258 he received orders from Henry  to form part of an English army to rescue of the Scottish boy king, Alexander, who had been captured by  his own rebellious barons. He further proved his loyalty after remaining on the side of the king against the  rebellion led by Simon de Montford from the late 1250s. Unlike some of his neighbours however he was able  to keep his lands safe from destruction and at his death in 1266 they remained intact. Roger had no male heir  and therefore the barony became extinct and its lands divided. 

The Lordship of Tranwell and High Church in part passed to his son in law, William, Baron Greytoke.  This family had land across the North of England, including their home estate at Pocklington in Yorkshire. The  Manor had been divided between his family and the Sommervilles who had inherited the other portion of  the Merlay barony. It is recorded in the possession of the Greystokes in an inquisition taken in 1317 and also  partly in the hands of Roger de Sommerville on his death 20 years later. By the end of the 14th century  however the whole of the Manor became vested in the Greytoke family under the control of Ralph, 3rd  Lord Greytoke. Ralph was six years old when his father died in 1359 and he was placed in the care of Roger  de Mortimer, earl March. and was granted livery of his estates, including Tranwell and High Church in 1374.  Within a few months he was charged with assisting the defence of the North from the Scots. In 1378 he  assisted in the recapture of Berwick from what is described by a contemporary as a force of seven desperate  Scotsman. Three years later, after taking part in a minor border skirmish he was captured near Roxburgh and  paraded in chains before a jeering crowd in Dunbar. After the accession of Richard II in 1377 Ralph quickly  became disillusioned with the regime of the new king and joined with Henry Bolingbroke when he returned  from exile in 1399 in order seize the throne. Greystoke remained important in the defence of the North  and assisted Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland in defeating the Scots at the Battle of Homildon Hill in  September 1402. He died in 1418. 

The Greystokes remained important northern barons throughout the 15th century and by its end  had accumulated large estates across five counties including the Lordship of Tranwell and High Church. The  last of the male line, Ralph 5th Baron, died in 1487 and his estates passed to his granddaughter Elizabeth. She  was the 6th Baroness in her own right (suo jure) and on her death on 1516 the Greystoke estates passed to  her husband, Thomas Dacre. He was the 7th Baron Greystoke, but also the 2nd Baron Dacre. The Dacres  hailed from Cumberland (now Cumbria) and like the Greystokes played an important role in the defence of  the northern borders thought they were not a particularly wealthy family. The Dacre barony was said to be  worth just £300 a year and especially vulnerable to Scottish raiders. Thomas’ marriage to Elizabeth Greystoke brought with it both riches and status. He could now afford to provide men and materials necessary for a stouter defence of the border area. In 1511, when Berwick was threatened he was appointed as warden  of all the northern Marches and fought with distinction at the Battle of Flodden in September 1513. At the  outset of the battle he recorded as leading a successful cavalry charge into the Scottish lines. After the battle  he would often boast that he had become something of a hate figure of the Scots, by reason of him finding the body of the King of Scots slain in the field. Thomas reluctantly remained the leader of the English defence  of the border until 1525 when he was arrested and briefly imprisoned for the bearinge of theaves. This was  considered at the time to be a spurious charge and it was more likely the case that his declining health had  led him to seriously neglect his duties, throwing the borders into chaos. He died later in 1525 after falling  from his horse and was succeeded by his eldest son, William. 

The Dacres remained Lords of the Manor of Tranwell and High Church until the death of William’s  son, John in 1569. Although there was a claimant for the Morpeth Barony it was decided officially that it had  instead gone into abeyance since he left ‘only’ three daughters married into the family of the Duke of Norfolk.  William Dacre’s widow had later married Thomas, the 4th Duke of Norfolk. The Lordship descended with  John Dacre’s third daughter, Elizabeth, who married Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle in Cumberland.  In 1661, William Howard’s great-grandson, Charles Howard was created Baron Dacre of Gillesland, Vis-count  Howard of Morpeth, and Earl of Carlisle and therefore the Lordship of the Manor of Tranwell passed to  the Earls of Carlisle. The manor remained in the hands of the Earls until the death of Charles, the 12th Earl  in 1994 when it passed to his son the Hon. Philip Charles Wentworth Howard who in turn sold it to the  present Vendor in 2000.  

Documents associated with this manor in the public domain:

Abstract of title of Trustees of Earl of Carlisle’s estates to land in Tranwell 1868. 

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Lot #5 of Manorial Services Auction - Nov 2022 - Stephen Johnson

The Manor of Treffos covers a large area on the south-east tip Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s personal arms of the island of Anglesey. It is thought to be composed of two  areas centred on the village of Llangeod and a large area which  contains the improbably named village of - 

 Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllandtysiliogogogoch. 

It is accessed across the famous Menai bridge built by Thomas  Telford. The extent is thought to encompass around 10,00 acres  and includes the parishes of Llansadwrn, Llandegfan, Llangoed  and Pentraeth. 

Treffos has been an important place in Welsh history and is  thought to have been the favourite property of Prince Llewelyn  ap Griffith. It was here that Llewelyn held job councils when he  was negotiating with Edward I. Sometimes known as Llewelyn  the Last, he was the last native Prince of Wales and grandson  of Llewelyn the Great who was the king of North Wales and  became the “Prince of the Welsh” in 1228. Although divided  among a number of small kingdoms, Wales was still politically separate from England at this time although  there were close ties between the two peoples. However, war broke out between Llewelyn’s uncle, Dafydd  ap Gruffydd and Henry III which led to the loss of land in North Wales, east of Conway. This began a civil  war in the remaining Welsh areas and Llewelyn emerged as the victor after the Battle of Bryn Derwin where  Dafydd was defeated. He took advantage of the civil war between Henry and Simon de Montfort to increase  his grip on power in North Wales and after the latter defeat, Llewelyn went on the offensive in North Wales  and captured a number of key sites, including Hawarden Castle, near Chester to give himself more bargaining  power in negotiations with Henry. Llewelyn then led his army to more victories in North Wales and so came  to treat with Henry at Montgomery in 1267 where he was recognised as Prince of Wales by the English king.  

Llewelyn’s period of power in Wales was short lived; within months he was having problems with various  English border lords and this became worse when Edward I ascended to the throne in 1272. Edward  demanded that Llewelyn attend him at Chester and pay homage, but the Prince refused and he further upset  the king by marrying Eleanor, the daughter of Simon de Montfort, in 1275. A year later Edward declared  Llewelyn a rebel and led a huge army into North Wales and captured Anglesey. Llewelyn was forced to come  to terms and recognise Edward as his overlord. Much of his land was stripped from him, but he retained the  area west of Conway, including his Lordship of Teffos. In 1282 Wales erupted in rebellion once more and  although Llewelyn had not fomented the revolt he was swept along with it. Once more Edward invaded  North Wales and forced Llewelyn to flee south. He was killed at the Battle of Orewin Bridge, near Builth  Wells, on 11 December 1282 and so became the last Welsh, Prince of Wales.  

Edward took great delight in dismembering Llewelyn’s estate and in 1284 the manor of Treffos was granted  to the Bishop of Bangor. It became a residence the Bishops and is thought to have been the capital of a  Barony in right, by which the bishops claimed a seat in Parliament. The manor was granted by Edward to  Bishop Aenan after he christened the king’s son, Edward, as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle in April  1284. The manor was given as a gift of thanks. At the same time the Bishops were granted the right to ferry  passengers across the Menai Strait at Borthwen and Cennant. 

The Bishops of Bangor remained as Lords of the Manor of Treffos into the 19th century. In a rather jarring  collision of the modern industrial world and the feudal, the Chester and Hollyhead Railway was recorded as  paying £35 for five acres of land to the Bishop as Lord of the Manor of Treffos in 1848.  

A report made by the Superintending Valuer for Wales, on behalf of the Inland Revenue Valuation Office, in  July 1950 noters the following; 

The Manor of Treffos extends into and comprises the whole or parts of the Parishes of Llansadwrn, Llanfair Pwll-Gwyn-Gyll, Llandysilio, Llandegfan, Llaniestyn, Llangoed, Llandonna and Pentraeth in the County of Anglesey. It lies in  the Hundred of Dindaethwy, one of the six ancient Hundreds contained within the county. 

The boundary of the manor was given with this report and is reproduced here for identification purposes  only. 

Treffos itself lies within the parish of Llansadwrn. 

A selection of great many manorial documents associated with Treffos in  the Public Domain: 

1600- 1699: rent roll National Library of Wales: 

1650- 1650: rents due, with other manors 

1676: rent roll 

1722: Bishopric rent roll 

1728-1729: rental, chief and annual quit rents 

1739: grant, office of seneschal, with Cantred 

1773: rent roll, Bishop’s chief rent 

1775- 1866: lease book, Bishopric of Bangor 

1789: rental, quit rents 

1807: deputation of gamekeeper 

1811-1844: court books (3) 

1819: rental, chief rents (in court book) 

1826: valuation, part of Treffos 

1827-1843: accounts (in court book) 

1828-1829: rentals (2) (in court book) 

1853-1856: rentals (2) (in court book) Llansadwrn Church.

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Lot #11 of Manorial Services Auction - Nov 2023 - Stephen Johnson

The manor of Treore, or Trevre, is found in the rugged  north of Cornwall in the parish of Endellion, a few miles south of  Port Isaac. This small community is based around the collegiate  church of St Endelienta. This is the only church dedicated to  this local saint who was said to be the daughter of the Welsh  King, Brychan. She converted to Christianity in the early 6th  century and preached in Conwall before settling in a hermitage  at Trentinney in the parish. A local legend maintains that she  lived on the milk of a cow, and water from two nearby wells.  The cow is supposed to have strayed onto the land of the Lord  of Trentinney who had the animal killed. In turn he was said to have been killed in revenge by King Arthur, Endelienta’s godfather. She was horrifed by the killing and restored  the Lord of Trentinney to life. At her death, reputedly at the hands of Saxon pirates, she was buried at the  top of a hill, the site of the present parish church. 

 The early history of this Lordship is extremely obscure, but this is by no means unusual for Cornwall.  According to volume 3 of Lysons Magna Brittania, published in 1803 the manor of Treore was, in the 17th  century, held by the Boscawen family. On the death of Hugh Boscawen in 1701 it passed through the  marriage of his heiress, to Hugh Fortescue. Lysons did not think it necessary to name the ‘heiress’, but it was  his only daughter, Bridget. Boscawen was born in 1625, the son of Hugh of Tregothnan. His family became  extremely wealthy through their copper mines at Chacewater and Gwennap, and Hugh was the principal  landowner. The mine at Chacewater, known as Wheal Busy was reported to have been, at one time, the  richest square mile on Earth.  

The Boscawens first came to prominence during the reign of John (1199-1216) when Henry de  Boscawen was recorded as a Lord of the Manor of Boscawen Rose. In the 14th century they inherited an  estate at Tregothnan, a few miles east of Truro. The family became one of the prominent land owners in the  County , having estates scattered across Cornwall. As the Dictionary of National Biography pithily notes  about the family their descendants continued to marry into other Cornish gentry families, adding to their property  when possible by soaking up available heiresses. The Boscawens tried not to trouble themselves with matters  outside Cornwall: Richard Boscawen paid £5 on 4 July 1505 to avoid going to court to be made a knight of the  Bath for ‘the creac’on of my Lo. Prince Henrie’ while Hugh Boscawen (d. 1559) did likewise on 18 January 1555  in order to get out of attending Philip of Spain’s coronation. A map of 1800 records the ‘Earl Fortescue’s Manor  of Treore” and shows land in and between the fishing settlements of Port Isaac of Porth Gaverne. It seems  likely therefore that the manor was purchased by Hugh Boscawen from Phillipp Penkevell in 1633 since this  transaction is found at Devon Heritage Centre. It has proven difficult to discern how Penkevell came to  own this estate. The family seem to some to have been of note in the 15th century but a further recorded  connection the the Manor remains elusive. 

The Fortescue family were of a similar but slightly more elevated background to the Boscawens  but hailed from Filleigh in Devon. The family could trace its origins back to Sir Richard le Forte who arrived  in England with the Conqueror in 1066 but by the 17th century had split into a number of branches  both in that county and in Devon. Arthur Fortescue lived at Penwarne in Mevagissey and it was his son,  Hugh, who married Bridget Boscawen. Hugh was successful polition, sitting in Parliament for five seats over  several decades. His son, also Hugh succeeded his father in 1719. Hugh was appointed a Gentleman of the  Bedchamber to George, Prince of Wales in 1723 but was ousted from his position after refusing to support  Prime Minister Walpole’s Excise Bill in 1733. After Walpole fell from power, Fortescue was rehabilitated in  Parliament before being raised to the Peerage as Baron Fortesuce. The family estate, including the Manor of  Treore, passed to his younger brother, Matthew, when Hugh died childless in 1751. Matthew’s only son, Hugh  inherited in 1785. The Manor remained in the hands of the family until the later 20th Century. 

In the early 18th century the land around Port Gaverne, was developed by the Fortescue Estate for  the exploitation of the huge pilchard shoals which were found in the waters off the North Cornish Coast.  Millions of tons of the fish were caught and processed each year in large buildings known as “Pilchard Palaces’  Earl Fortescue owned two of these in Port Isaac. 

Documents in the Public Domain Associated with this Lordship:

1746-1808 Presentments Devon Archives 18th Reeves Reports 

1762 Survey of the Manor 

1755-1820 Rentals 

1791- 1820 Surveys 

1803-1812 Rentals 

1868-1876 Rent Books 

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Lot #7 of Manorial Services Auction - February 2022 - Stephen Johnson

Triemain is an ancient place. Variously known and spelt as Triemain, Triemaine or Troddermaine, it  lies in the parish of Lanercost, 10 miles West of Carlisle. The southern boundary of the Manor includes the  famous roman excavated site of Birdoswald and follows the route of Hadrian’s Wall.  

This district of Cumberland was wild and warlike at the time of the Norman invasion of 1066 and  it took the new rulers of England many years to subdue it and bring it fully under their control. This manor  appears to have been part of the Barony of Gilsland, which was granted to Ranulphus de Meschines by  William I. The earliest mention of Triemain appears in the 12th century when it was held by Hubert de Vaux  as part of the barony, which was centred at his new castle at Naworth. At his death in 1165 his lands passed  to his son Robert. He is remembered chiefly for founding Lanercost Priory in 1169 and defending Carlisle  from William I of Scotland in 1174. He was succeeded by his Brother Ranulf in 1195. He was the father of an  illegitimate son, Roland, who was later granted the Lordship of Triemain by his half brother, Robert. Roland  was immortalised as the ideal expression of romantic chivalry in a poem by Walter Scott. At this point, at the  beginning of the 13th century, there was a castle situated at Triemain, forming part of the border defences  against the Scots. It was described in a Elizabethen source, by which time the castle had sunken into ruin as  formerly a house of great strength and a very convenient place for both annoying of the enemy and defending the  county thereabouts. The remains of Triemain Castle today consist of single remaining wall. 

 The Vaux family continued to hold Triermaine into the 14th century. In around 1377 it passed to  another Roland de Vaux, who farmed the manor and its neighbour, Tercrosset. This was still an area which lay  outside the grip of royal power and Vaux was known for taking part in illegal raids across the border, often  pursing private feuds and vendettas. In 1380 the earl of Douglas wrote to John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster,  to complain that Faux’s violent activities were threatening the delicate truces held between the two nations.  He told Gaunt of how Vaux had repeatedly ridden into Scotland, seizing ‘booty’ and prisoners for ransom.  Vaux was publicly and privately rebuked by Gaunt, but this made little difference and he continued his  actions, including waging a private war with the Abbot of Shap and his tenants. Such was the weakness of the  central state over the borderlands that when a new truce was declared in 1398, Vaux was named as one of  the securities for its preservation!. By the time of his death in 1412 he had accommodated himself to royal  control after supporting Henry Bolinbroke’s seizure of the Crown in 1399 and, as a Member of Parliament,  signed Richard II’s deposition order. 

The Dacres family became Lords of the Manor of Triemain in the latter half of the 15th century  and on the marriage of John Dacre’s third daughter, Elizabeth to Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle  in Cumberland it passed to the Howards. In 1661, William Howard’s great-grandson, Charles Howard was  created Baron Dacre of Gillesland, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and Earl of Carlisle . The manor remained  in the hands of the Earls until it was sold by the 12th Earl in 1987 to the family of the present holder.

Triermain is perhaps best known for lending its name to a poem by Walter Scott, The Bridal of  Triemain. This was published anonymously in 1813 and is an interweaving of three Lake District stories: an  18th century courtship between Arthur and Lucy, Lyulph’s Tale, an Arthurian legend and that of Sir Roland  de Vaux, who we have already encountered. This extract is taken from the third Canto and romantically  describes describes de Vaux challenging his adversaries in the mountains; 

Forth from the cave did Roland rush, 

O’er crag and stream, through brier and bush;  

Yet far he had not sped 

Ere sunk was that portentous light 

Behind the hills, and utter night  

Was on the valley spread. 

He paused perforce, and blew his horn, 

And on the mountain-echoes borne  

Was heard an answering sound, 

A wild and lonely trumpet-note; 

In middle air it seem’d to float  

High o’er the battled mound; 

And sounds were heard, as when a guard 

Of some proud castle, holding ward,  

Pace forth their nightly round. 

The valiant Knight of Triermain 

Rung forth his challenge-blast again,  

But answer came there none; 

And ‘mid the mingled wind and rain, 

Darkling he sought the vale in vain,  

Until the dawning shone; 

And when it dawn’d, that wondrous sight, 

Distinctly seen by meteor light --  

It all had pass’d away; 

And that enchanted mount once more 

A pile of granite fragments bore,  

As at the close of day.

Documents in the Public Domain Associated with this Lordship:

Fines 1553-1553 Cumbria Archive Centre, Carlisle 

Rental and Survey 1588-1589 

Fines 1600-1900 

Map 1603-1608 

List of Tenements 1616-1618 

Descent and alienation fines 1667-1711 

Enrollments 1743 

Plan 1750 

Ancient Rents and Greenhews 1751-1759 

Bailiffs accounts 1757-1791 

Court leets and Valuation 1757 

Ancient rents 1759-1840 

Steward’s Rentals 1769-1826 

Extracts from court rolls 1792-1814 

Bowman’s Survey 1828-1832 

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Lot #13 of Manorial Services Auction - Summer 2020 - Stephen Johnson

THE continuator to the Rev Daniel Blomesfield’s ‘History, Topograhy &c of the County of Norfolk’ could be  robust in some of his descriptions when they involved Normans superseding Saxons. 

William Earl Warren had the Lordship of this town (Trunch), of which three freemen were deprived: one of them  belonged to Harold, late King of England, another to Ralph Saltre, and a third to Ketel. 

The Domesday entry is a little more temperate, no doubt being enrolled by Norman clergymen: 

In TRUNCH three freemen, one of Harold’s, another of  Ralph the Constable’s, the third of Ketel, 90 acres of land...  Fourteen smallholders. Always five ploughs among them.  One church (with) 10 acres (which the priest would have  farmed himself). Woodland for three pigs; meadow, three  acres. Value always 30 shillings. Further there are six  freemen, of Edrich’s before 1066, at 34 acres of land.  Two ploughs, meadow, two and a half acres. Value always  7s. 4d (seven shillings and four pence)... In MUNDESLEY  and in TRUNCH (Robert) Malet claims 19 freemen, three  in patronage and the others all with customary dues.-  our brackets in parenthesis. 

The Overlordship of the area belonged to Lord Warren under his capital manor of Gimingham, and paid suit  and service there. We next have a jump to the 13th century when, in 1250, we find Richer, son of Nicholas,  purchasing a house, 48 acres of land, a mill, and a sixth part in others at Swaffield and Bradfield nearby. In  1287, a descendant of the Norman Warrens claimed a weekly market, on Saturday, in this manor. On the  death of the last Earl Warren in 1348 the market was worth 10 shillings a year. Trunch passed by bequest to  the Earl of Lancaster, and thence to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who died in 1399. By this date, Henry  Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford and Derby (being Derby, near Liverpool, not the county), had dethroned  his cousin, Richard II, whom he had murdered, and became Henry IV. The manor passed into the Duchy  of Lancaster. At an unrecorded date, Lord Suffield acquired the manor from the Crown through the royal  Duchy, and Trunch has probably belonged to this noble family for the last 200 or more years. 

We noted a church at the time of Domesday and this must have been the foundation of St Botolph’s, now in  the centre of the village. It is in the Early Decorated style (13th to 14th centuries) and Perpendicular Style  (15th century), and consists of a chancel, nave, aisles, western tower with three bells, and a carved berptistry.  A screen, dated 1502, iscarved with painted figures of the Apostles. There are several inscriptions. Even in  the 1930s, the local parson had 15 acres of glebe and a house known as the Rectory, a fine-sounding building,  no doubt since sold by the Church Commissioners, and the rector turned out into a three-bed semi with  little room to hold meetings. There is a war memorial to the local fallen of both World Wars to the south  of the church. 

Eighty years ago, Mrs F Greenweood lived at Trunch House and Mr Alfred Primrose occupied The Limes; his  family in 1937 was said to have lived in the village since 1500. There was a family brewery here until the  1950s when it was sold to Morgans, a local firm. Egaged in an unusual occupation, we may think, in 1937  were Jack and Horace Bullen who were ‘well sinkers’, necessary no doubt to drain land subject to proximity  of the North Sea and occasional stormy weather. The Crown Inn is still going, but two other public houses  have fallen by the wayside. The Tudor Rose serves food. Many of the houses are of flint and others are  18th century. Thatched cottages are not forgotten for tourists who may be coming from North America. 

The village lies about two and a half miles from North Walsham and covers some 1,357 acres. The population  at the last Census was 909.  

Sources: Internet, The Revd D Blomefield, History of Norfolk &c, 11 vols, Kelly’s Directory (1937). 

Documents associated with this Manor (not included in the sale, but available for inspection at Norfolk RO,  Norwich). 

Manorial Documents Associated With This Manor:

1400-1500 Custumal Norfolk Record Office 

1558-1625 Court Rolls Norfolk Record Office 

1672 Suit Roll Norfolk Record Office 

1907-1918 Enfranchisements National Archives 

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